Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005)

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

The prose is excellent. Well written and lively, and easy to digest. I also like the introduction of some more fringe "economists" that would have escaped my attention otherwise.

My criticism is that the book seems outdated, and more interesting to read as a window into an age rather than for information. I would take most of the Heilbroner explains as "fact" with a large grain of salt. The book overall seems to be a product of an earlier pre-Chicago school age, of a leftist- to socialist show more grain. It's interesting as a historical artifact but has little informative value in my opinion. Heilbroner is far more sympathetic to Utopians, Marx and Keynes than to cornerstones of the economic establishment. He dismisses Marshall and Edgeworth with a wave of the hand. For some basic economic ideas, Heilbroner seems confused, or even misconstrues them.

I liked the exploration of the individual lives of the economists. I thought probably the best point that Heilbroner makes is that economics needs to see society as evolving and changing (each era of history is likely to have it's own set of economics, all possibly valid since the nature of organization has changed) and that abstract math cannot and should not replace the political, social and psychological aspects of economics.

I feel mixed about the book overall. I did not agree with the ideas and saw some simplifications as simply wrong but ultimately I am glad that I read the book. show less

It has some great anecdotes on early economists, but ends with Schumpeter—far too soon. The scale is so broad that we only really learn about macroeconomics—never micro—and there is at least as much sociology or political theory as macroeconomics. Heilbroner's own economic judgements are often questionable, and his last chapter, summing up and suggesting a future for economics, is atrocious. It is also interesting how he manages to completely ignore some of today's major economic and show more political issues, e.g., inequality.

> It was said that he [Adam Smith] had brewed himself a beverage of bread and butter and pronounced it the worst cup of tea he had ever tasted.

> In contrast with Bastiat, who was drawn to the irrationalities of economic sophistry, or with Henry George, who saw the injustices of life cloaked with economic sanction, or with Hobson, who looked for hidden destructive tendencies in the impersonal processes of capitalist economics, Marshall was primarily interested in the self-adjusting, self-correcting nature of the economic world. As his most brilliant pupil, J. M. Keynes, would later write, he created "a whole Copernican system, in which all the elements of the economic universe are kept in their places by mutual counterpoise and interaction."

> If Marx's view was right, for example, and the proletariat was irreconcilably and diametrically opposed to the capitalist, what prevented the revolution from breaking out at once? Veblen provides an answer. The lower classes are not at swords' points with the upper; they are bound up with them by the intangible but steely bonds of common attitudes. The workers do not seek to displace their managers; they seek to emulate them. They themselves acquiesce in the general judgment that the work they do is somehow less "dignified" than the work of their masters, and their goal is not to rid themselves of a superior class but to climb up to it. In the theory of the leisure class lies the kernel of a theory of social stability.

> Planck turned to Keynes and told him that he had once considered going into economics himself. But he had decided against it—it was too hard. Keynes repeated the story with relish to a friend back at Cambridge. "Why, that’s odd," said the friend. "Bertrand Russell was telling me just the other day that he'd also thought about going into economics. But he decided it was too easy." show less

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