The Economists

Leonard Silk has written an excellent book about five great Economists of our time. He covers Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith, Wassily Leontif and Kenneth Boulding. Silk's conversational style makes this book not only informative but interesting as well.He manages to cover both the theory and some personal history which is a great credit to the man, since most books on the lives of Economists usually lean too heavily one way or the other. Silk is not afraid of stepping out of the `academe' and speaking bluntly about some of the areas where Economists have gone wrong. He reserves his harshest criticisms for Friedman, whom he considers not only simplistic, but hiding his political preferences behind the smokescreen of his so-called positive economics. "Friedman's methodological insistence on the free market as the basic hypothesis of positive economic analysis conveniently dovetailed with his ideological faith in laissez-faire and his opposition to government controls and planning"... p.74This `attack' on Friedman was what made me give this book less than 5 stars, I felt that Silk should have been impartial when discussing these men and saved the venom for another book. He does redeem himself in chapter six however, where he discusses the economic profession in the 1970s and how the movement toward abstract economic analysis was/is making economics lose touch with reality.Silk has some very insightful views into what it is serious Economists should be doing, he likens those economists who would rather work within the strict confines of neo-classical economics to the man who having lost his keys after a late night out, would rather search for it under the streetlight where there is some light rather than on the path he has traveled. A recommended book for lovers of economics!