Social Research articles from June 2004

Social Research archives from June 2004

Editor's introduction.(Editorial)
June 22, 2004... BOB HEILBRONER JOINED THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF SOCIAL RESEARCH in 1960. When I became editor in 1970 he generously became both my guide and my cheerleader. It is difficult to imagine anyone better suited for those roles. The journal mattered to...

Guest editor's introduction.(Editorial)
June 22, 2004... THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF SOCIAL RESEARCH CELEBRATES THE FIFTIETH anniversary of the publication of Robert Heilbroner's classic work, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers. The book, now in its seventh...

Even a worldly philosopher needs a good mechanic.(Part I: Heilbroner's methodology)
June 22, 2004... ANYONE WHO TEACHES ECONOMICS OWES A DEBT TO THE WORLDLY PHILOSOPNERS for having attracted so many bright and interested students to economics, much as Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters--a lesser book--recruited the young of my generation to the...

Is economics a natural science?(Part I: Heilbroner's methodology)
June 22, 2004... INTRODUCTION ROBERT HEILBRONER, IN THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE MOST RECENT edition of The Worldly Philosophers, calls on us to develop an "economic vision [that] could become the source of an awareness of ways by which a capitalist structure...

Science, economics, "vision" *.(Part I: Heilbroner's methodology)
June 22, 2004... Why... should we not applaud the increasing tendency to envision economics as a science?--ROBERT HEILBRONER (1999: 137). AS BOB HEILBRONER WAS TEACHING HIS SEMINAR ON ECONOMIC methodology with William Milberg at the New School, I was...

The Robert Heilbroner problem *.(Part I: Heilbroner's methodology)
June 22, 2004... 1. THE PROBLEM When historians and economists refer to the "Adam Smith problem" they mean the difficulty of reconciling the highly empathetic and socialized individual presented in Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 with the...

Visualizing the economy.(Part I: Heilbroner's methodology)
June 22, 2004... VISIONS WHEN ROBERT HEILBRONER WRITES ABOUT THE VISION OF ECONOMISTS, he himself appears to be a visionary (Heilbroner, 1956; Heilbroner and Milberg, 1995). It is as if he sees something that others do not. Economists usually do not speak...

Do only economic illiterates argue that trade can destroy jobs and lower America's national income?(Part II: wordly philosophy and twenty-first-century capitalism)
June 22, 2004... MUCH OF ROBERT HEILBRONER'S CRITIQUE OF ECONOMICS HAS TO DO with the economic profession's wish to be seen as a science with known constants and well-understood mathematical equations. To make the standard mathematical models work, actual homo...

Two views on the obstacles to development.(Part II: wordly philosophy and twenty-first-century capitalism)
June 22, 2004... I COUNT MYSELF AMONG THE MULTITUDE GIVEN AN INTRODUCTION TO the history of economic thought through Bob Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. When I first read the book I was not sufficiently knowledgeable of foreign languages to recognize the...

The worldly philosophers and the war economy *.(Part II: wordly philosophy and twenty-first-century capitalism)
June 22, 2004... DOES WAR PRESENT DISTINCTIVE PROBLEMS FOR THE WORLDLY philosophy? Does empire? Do economists have any particular insight into these topics? Do we have any professional obligations when faced with the threats and circumstances of wartime or the...

Structuralist economics: worldly philosophers, models, and methodology.(Part II: wordly philosophy and twenty-first-century capitalism)
June 22, 2004... ECONOMICS IS NOT TO BE A SCIENCE OF SOCIETY... ITS PURPOSE IS TO help ns better understand the capitalist setting in which we will most likely have to shape our collective destiny for the foreseeable future" (Heilbroner, 1999: 310). These...

Rationality and ideology in economics.(Part III: rethinking markets, rationality, and choice)
June 22, 2004... ROBERT HEILBRONER HAS HAD A LONG-STANDING INTEREST IN THE issues of rationality and ideology in shaping economic theory (see, particularly, Heilbroner, 1988, chaps. 1 and 8, and Heilbroner, 1999, chap. 11). Heilbroner argues that the conception...

Sleeping beauty awakes: self-interest, feminism, and fertility in the early twentieth century.(Part III: rethinking markets, rationality, and choice)
June 22, 2004... Never before, in any society, had the pursuit of wealth been legitimated, much less celebrated, for everyone. --ROBERT HEILBRONER (1999: 312) THE STORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITALISM AND THE pursuit of individual self-interest...

Markets and their social construction.(Part III: rethinking markets, rationality, and choice)
June 22, 2004... INTRODUCTION My objective is to outline a model of how markets arise and work and are worked. My argument is that markets are neither given nor transcendental but are constructed by the actions of firms and governments. Several...

The power of profit.(Part III: rethinking markets, rationality, and choice)
June 22, 2004... I FIRST ENCOUNTERED THE WORK OF ROBERT HEILBRONER IN 1967 while I was a graduate student at Columbia University. The history of economic thought was still taught in those days, and The Worldly Philosophers was the gravitational center of this...

Heilbroner and Polanyi: a shared vision.(Part IV: Heilbroner in the history of economic thought)
June 22, 2004... INTRODUCTION: A SHARED VISION OF ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IN THE OPENING PARAGRAPH OF HIS INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF debates among Marxist historians and economists over The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism that were initiated...

Envisioning provisioning: Adolph Lowe and Heilbroner's worldly philosophy.(Part IV: Heilbroner in the history of economic thought)
June 22, 2004... The authors [of The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought, Robert Heilbroner and William Milberg] also understand deeply the influence of the great masters of our trade--Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Mill, Marshall, Keynes, and Heilbroner's own...

The worldly philosopher behind The Worldly Philosophers.(Part IV: Heilbroner in the history of economic thought)
June 22, 2004... BOB HEILBRONER AND I BECAME BEST FRIENDS AT THE AGE OF ABOUT six. From that point forward, best has only become better. Bob was a worldly philosopher from the start. Let me give just one example. When I was nine or ten years old, my aunt...