The Worldly Philosophers

Economics, rather than being cold, difficult, and abstract, is exciting, dangerous, and given to world-changing impact. Heilbroner writes not about economists who made history-changing decisions but those who shaped and swayed people’s minds. He argues that heretical economic opinions that evolved into common sense built the whole intellectual architecture of modern life, exposing much of what was once considered economic common sense as baseless superstition.

The economists that Heilbroner discusses could not be more varied; they came from every nationality and family background and had opposing opinions on almost every topic, but they were united by one thing: curiosity. “They were all fascinated by the world around them, by its complexity and its seeming disorder, by the cruelty that it so often masked in sanctimony and the success of which it was equally often unawares” (16). Thus, Heilbroner calls these economists “the worldly philosophers” because they sought to understand humanity’s most worldly activity: the pursuit of wealth. Their search for the order and meaning of social history forms both the heart of economics and the book’s central theme.

Even though humanity always struggled with economic problems—distribution of wealth, acquisition of resources, etc.—the first economist of note, Adam Smith, didn’t live until the time of the American Revolution.