ROBERT L. HEILBRONERS-"THE WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS

BY PETE HOLLY

When Robert L. Heilbroner first published his brilliant book on "economics" in 1953,
"THE WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS" an extremly well written work which tells the story
of all the great economists since the begining of economic thought and describes in detail all thier fasinating idea's about how economy's work and also how they can fail.
Before the stock market crash in 1929 nearly every economist believed that such a thing
could never happen.When it did they were dumbfounded and caught totally off guard.Nobody
knew what to do.What puzzled economist's most was that the economy didn't self-correct itself.
The depression lingered on for years when finally the vast majority of the great economists had
to admit-if nothing were done-and nothing was being done-It would be possible for the depression
to go on indefinatly.This was a shocking idea to the economists-who had never contemplated such
a possibility.According to thier calculations of capitalism-such an occurance was mathmatically
and theorhetically impossible.How could they all have been so wrong?No-one knew the answer
to that either.
Towards the end of Heilbroners book he warns that the old certainies of capitalistic
theory were no longer so certain.That we needed an economic system that took into account
the psychology of human beings-and that to do anything short of this would be to invite
disaster.W'ell,as it turns out-and as we all now know-the wise Mr. Heilbroner was correct in
his assessment.
More people need to read Mr. Heilbroners book.There is a wealth of information and
wisdom within' it's pages.

Written by Pete Holly-2009-copyright-all rights reserved