The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers

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You could argue that words like “worldly” and “philosopher” might be of little appeal to the average student of the dismal science. The market system involves a high degree of economic activity, revolving around the production of goods and services. It is significant that the basic agents of production — land, labor, and capital — did not exist as abstract ideas until the Economic Revolution. Of course, there was land used for agriculture, and labor in the form of human workers doing physical tasks, and capital that provided funds for buying tools and maintaining the land. However, society as a whole did not consider these terms as impersonal ideas in the modern sense of "Let's start a business — we need land for the location of the factory, we need a labor force to do the work, and we must have the capital to finance our efforts." Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers is a living classic, both because he makes us see that the ideas of the great economists remain fresh and important for our times and because his own brilliant writing forces us to reach out into the future.” Team Marx believes that the profit is not strictly speaking the product of the Caterpillarist’s capital, it’s the product of the Workers’ labor (the “labor theory of value”).

As it turns out, the dispute is about the ball. Not what you do with the ball, but the composition of the ball. In his vision of society's economic progress, Smith saw two additional fundamental laws which propelled the market system in an ascending spiral of productivity and away from the "avarice of private greed." These laws he called the law of accumulation and the law of population.Schumpeter's conclusion produced a major economic contribution: the belief that capitalism, which evolves from the values of the civilization itself, was losing its steam. Even though his prediction emphasizes a moribund state of the economy, the author appends a small hope that there are still three decades in which capitalism will struggle before dying out completely. The Worldly Philosophers, quite simply put, is a classic....None of us can know where we are coming from unless we know the sources of the great ideas that permeate our thinking. The Worldly Philosophers gives us a clear understanding of the economic ideas that influence us whether or not we have read the great economic thinkers.” He also came up with a way of classifying economies, as either Traditional (primarily agriculturally-based, perhaps subsistence economy), Command (centrally planned economy, often involving the state), Market (capitalism), or Mixed. In addition to explaining each economist's theory or criticism, Heilbroner sketches his personality, as well as his private and academic life, and while that was dull and irrelevant at times, at others it was greatly entertaining and shed some light on the conclusion said economist arrived at.

In his eyes, it’s a beautiful thing, it’s capable of progress, change, growth and improvement, it works, and it doesn't need anybody from outside to make it work or tweak it.In fact, it works best when nobody tweaks it at all. It’s self-regulating. The invisible hand of the market is working away behind the scenes, yes, invisibly, just like God is supposed to. Capital: The physical necessities for production — buildings, machinery, tools, equipment, and supplies. His treatment of Mill is good, never someone I would have otherwise considered a great political philosopher, but I changed my mind. Mill is the intellectual father of the modern welfare state compromise, because he admits the power of politics to control distribution through tax policy. The driving force in Schumpeter's world-picture is his accolade to the talented few, the idea people who render service to an otherwise not-very-engaging business machine set in the well-worn ruts of sameness. An even more intriguing possibility is that Schumpeter, imbued with elitist notions from childhood, may have set up this paradigm as a means of self-glorification, seeing himself as the swami of elitism.