The Worldly Philosophers

Blurb

The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers is a book by Robert L. Heilbroner. The book was written in 1953 and has sold more than four million copies through seven editions. Heilbroner begins chapter two by describing the paradoxical and precarious nature of human behavior. Self-centeredness, he writes, characterizes human life along with cooperation. The result is what he calls a "struggle". In "primitive" societies such as that of the Eskimos, the struggle does not pose a problem: Individuals behave under strong pressure to act in the interest of survival. He contrasts those societies with "advanced" or "modern" ones, in which "this tangible pressure of the environment, or this web of social obligation, is lacking". In those societies, fewer incentives exist for individuals to act for the purpose of survival. The result is that "society's existence hangs by a hair". Because of modern society's complexity, a small change could lead to social disarray. He cautiously uses the words "disorganized" and "breakdown", rather than stronger words like "collapse" or "fail", to describe a society that falls victim to those ills.