R.I.P. Robert L. Heilbroner

Dr. Robert L. Heilbroner (photo: New York Times

Robert L. Heilbroner, an economist and writer of lively and provocative books that inspired generations of students with the drama of how the world earns, or fails to earn, its living - books that made him one of his profession's all-time best-selling authors - died on Jan. 4 in Manhattan. He was 85.

....Dr. Heilbroner's first book, "The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers," written before he received his doctorate, is one of the most widely read economics books of all time. He was also a prominent lecturer as well as the author of 19 other books, which sold more than 10 million copies and, in many cases, became standard college textbooks.

....In "21st Century Capitalism," (W. W. Norton & Co., 1993), Dr. Heilbroner explained his radical conservatism with a bow to Adam Smith. Dr. Heilbroner agreed with Smith that the separation of the economy and the state was central to capitalism and a nation's economic health, and essential for political liberty. But he believed that from time to time the people's government had to wade in with major repairs.

He said in an interview in 1998 that "feelings of dismay" penetrate the contemporary mind over unstable or depressed world economies and the widening income gap. He also noted capitalism's shortcomings in dealing with "externalities" - for example, "the higher laundry bills and health costs of people living in Pittsburgh before the pollution of the steel mills was brought under control." "Negative externalities," particularly the pollution of land, water and air by private enterprises intent on holding down costs cried out for government intervention, he said, whether in the form of taxes, subsidies, legislation or regulation.

....read it all: Robert Heilbroner, Writer and Economist, Dies at 85 by Holcomb B. Noble, New York Times, 12 January 2005