Robert Heilbroner Professions : Economist Born : March 24, 1919 Died : January 4, 2005 Browse All Authors Top 36 quotes by Robert Heilbroner The use of mathematics has brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it has also brought mortis. Robert Heilbroner rigor-mortis economics use Veblen once asked a religious student the value of her church in kegs of beer. Robert Heilbroner church religious beer Karl Marx did not call for an opposition to the forces of history. On the contrary he accepted all of them, the drive of technology, the revolutionizing effects of democratic striving, even the vagaries of capitalism, as being indeed the carriers of a brighter future. Robert Heilbroner strive accepted technology Today and over the foreseeable future,traditional capitalism throughout most of the world has been thrown on a defensive from which it is doubtful that it can never recover. Robert Heilbroner capitalism today world Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits. Later on, a Henry Ford might introduce an era of intensely production-minded captains of industry, but the Harrimans, Morgans, Fricks, and Rockefellers were far more interested in the exciting manipulation of huge masses of intangible wealth than in the humdrum business of turning out goods. Robert Heilbroner hero age reality We turn to Marx, therefore, not because he is infallible, but because he is inescapable. Robert Heilbroner infallible turns Less than seventy-five years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won. Robert Heilbroner contests socialism years Before economics can progress, it must abandon its suicidal formalism. Robert Heilbroner suicidal economics progress Economists can be called the worldly philosophers for they sought to embrace in a scheme of philosophy the most worldly of man's activities-his drive for wealth. Robert Heilbroner philosopher men philosophy Stalinism is a pathology of socialism, Hitlerism being the apposite example for capitalism. Robert Heilbroner pathology socialism example In the periods of crisis, the bigger firms absorb the smaller ones,and when the industrial monsters eventually go down, the wreckage is far greater than when the little enterprises buckle. Robert Heilbroner wreckage monsters littles The change began with John Stuart Mill and the Utopians . When Mill pointed out that economics had no ultimate solution to the problem of distribution , that society might do with the fruits of its toil as it saw fit, he introduced into the mechanical calculus of the market a conflicting calculus of moral judgment. Robert Heilbroner fruit saws might Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits . Robert Heilbroner hero age reality The secret to economic growth lay in the fact that that each generation attacked Nature not only with its own energies and resources, but with the heritage of equipment accumulated by its forebears. Robert Heilbroner heritage growth secret It is one of the dangerous self-deceptions of our society to pretend that mechanisms of control do not really exist, and to maintain, without qualification, that we are an economically "free" people. Robert Heilbroner deception self people Unlike modern man, who dreams of the world he will make, pre-modern man dreamed of the world he left. Robert Heilbroner dream men world Similar Authors Bryan Caplan economist Burton Malkiel economist Bruno Frey economist Brian Wesbury economist Branko Milanovic economist Andrew Samwick economist All Authors