Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005)

I've had this book on the shelf for over twenty years. I purchased it for an Intro to Macroeconomics class but I must not have read it at the time – or maybe we only had to read a small part because I found my annotations in only one chapter – but I decided to pick it up again and I'm very glad I did. Heilbroner looks at the great (and not-so-great) economists from Adam Smith down to John Maynard Keynes. And he truly tells you about their "lives, times and ideas" and makes the history show more come alive. Not only does he tell about Smith's "Invisible Hand" and supply and demand but also how he'd sometimes go into these trances where he'd end up marching for hours before coming out of it! And you learn about Keynes' insights into economic depressions (which may explain our current economic malaise) as well as his dalliances with men. There's also many in between, including some of the 'nuts' like Robert Owen, Henry George, and Thorstein Veblen. And, of course, there's Karl Marx.

The section on Marx is probably my favorite because Heilbroner makes you see the world Marx and his theories came from – as well as how often he was right! He points out that Marx "was not the architect of actual socialism" – that was Lenin – and it's so insightful that it almost makes me want to read Capital! In fact, the whole book was utterly fascinating. Heilbroner doesn't just explain economic ideas or even merely put them into context, he does it in a way that entertains, and he even made me laugh! My copy is from 1986 and it would be interesting to see what he'd thought of the collapse of communism just a few years later (maybe it was updated in a later edition?). (Modified from my 2/10/15 blog posting:http://bookworm-dad.blogspot.com/2015/02/marx-maynard-and-dr-dick.html) show less

Одна из лучших книг, которых я читал за всю жизнь. Автор мастерски описал социо-экономические революции произошедшие за всю историю человечества, но самое главное автор указал, кто смог проанализировать и описать данные революции, а иногда даже предсказать их. Каждая show more глава имеет историю о великом экономисте, его жизненном пути, а также как он пришел к своей великой идее. Каждая глава начинается с вопроса и отвечает на него, но в процессе ответа, задает след. вопрос. Книга имеет 10 глав, и подводит читателя к пику книги - что будет дальше с Миром? Что будет дальше с экономикой? Я считаю, книга обязательна к прочтению любому человеку. Она поможет понять, почему мир такой как он есть. show less

What I particularly like about this book is how Heilbroner begins with the term “political economy”, then relegates it to “economics” (as happened in history), only to revive the term at the end where he tells us that Schumpeter is the last worldly philosopher as we have – more or less – learnt all we can through a scientific approach based significantly on grand assumptions about the behaviour of homo economicus, and it is time to reintroduce politics. That Heilbroner ends with show more Schumpeter is interesting. I am not sure if his eschewing of Hayek (who gets a few mentions in the book) is ideological. Nonetheless, it is an interesting approach to understanding the economy although a newer edition (the seventh was released in 1999) might be useful to mention the impact of the return to free trade and back again with the recent Global Financial Crisis. Regardless, this should be the first port of call for novice economists or political scientists alike. As a second reading, I found the suggested reading list at the end of the book to be most helpful to guide a revisit to the many classics which are now readily available for free on the Net. Indeed, it was well-worth revisiting Heilbroner and I may do so yet again. show less

This is history of when what we call economics was still part of philosophy, with some more recent economists too. Each one is worth knowing about.

Later, in 2023, I learn that the seventh and last edition of Worldly Philosophers included a new chapter, chapter 11, titled "The End of Worldly Philosophy?". It discusses "end" in both of its possible meanings, as termination, and as purpose or goal.

Heilbroner mentions how economics has become very mathematical, with lots of numbers and theories. show more That's fine, he thinks. What disturbs him, though, is economists who believe their field is a science like physics. Humans, with our free will and emotions, and ethics, and values can't be described in the same way that, say, electrons can.

He hopes for an economics that more and more realizes that it is linked to politics more than to physics, and one that realizes it is not value-free, an economics with a sense of social responsibility. show less