Paul A. Samuelson, 1915-2009
By Robert Higgs • Monday December 14, 2009 10:16 AM PDT • 6 Comments
An announcement from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology informs us that Paul A. Samuelson died on Sunday, December 13, 2009, at the age of 94. The announcement also gives a good account of why Samuelson was for more than half a century a towering figure in the economics profession and, to some degree, in the wider world.
Although my one personal encounter with Samuelson was brief and not altogether pleasant, I was greatly affected by his influence on economics. In the 1960s, when I was being trained in economics, he was generally regarded as the greatest living economist, and his way of doing economics was generally regarded as virtually defining how to carry out economic analysis scientifically.
Having suffered through this Samuelsonian training, I immediately began to move away from it once I became an economist. In fact, I increasingly grew to believe that the worst aspects of modern economics owe more to Samuelson than to any other single economist. Eventually I became convinced that the modern mainstream’s so-called scientific economics is not truly scientific at all, but a species of scientism—the misapplication of methods developed for the study of material reality to the study of human choice and cooperation. Having had my say about Samuelson’s baneful influence in this regard (here and here), I need say nothing more upon his passing.
Except that however misguided I believe he was in his approach to economics, he was a man of enormous intellect and tremendous influence. I only wish that his great talents had been aimed in a different direction.
Tags: Economics, Education, Philosophy, Science 
You said in your 2008 piece “Nothing has done more to render modern economic theory a sterile and irrelevant exercise in autoeroticism than its practitioners’ obsession with mathematical, general-equilibrium models. ”
This reminds me of my father (M. Bruce Johnson) who was a Prof of Economics. I know he’d agree with you.
Here’s a particular story I remember him telling us. One time, while peer-reviewing a new economic article (awaiting publication) authored by a fellow university professor, which was full of forumulas and complex equations, he went and asked he fellow reviewers about the mathematics, which he (with a Ph.D in Mathematics as well as Economics) didn’t fully understand.
They couldn’t either, but since it was from fellow Prof. XXX and his area of specialty, they had given it their approval. My dad pointed out that maybe there was something wrong with the state of economics, if economic research had got to the point where even the professors who lived and breathed it couldn’t understand it.
His personal conclusion was that hardly anything of value had come out of economic research for decades.
Paula | Dec 14, 2009 | Reply
Paula,
I came close to being your father’s colleague. The year he left the University of Washington for UCSB — 1968 — was the year I joined the faculty at the UW. He still had many friends in Seattle.
Robert Higgs | Dec 14, 2009 | Reply
When individuals achieve rank not only within their chosen discipline but also slip in the ranks of politics with their theories, it seemingly becomes impossible for them to truly understand the “law of unintended consequences.” Whether knowing or unknowing, these centerpiece individuals can easily reap havoc on generations to come. That being said, I reflect on two thoughts from two insightful individuals:
“It is impossible for a man to learn what the thinks he already knows.” ~ Epictetus
&
Shakespeare’s Scottish Play: “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”
I will not and do not miss Mr. Samuelson or his teachings. I relish the above latter thought slightly more than the former ... for it truly is difficult to reconcile the damage done by those revered centerpiece individuals. History is on my side. So is truth.
Now on the other hand if that Dr. R. Higgs ... was centerpieced...! :)
C’est la guerre.
Capt. A. | Dec 15, 2009 | Reply
Professor Higgs,
As one who has studied both hard science (chemistry) as an undergraduate and economics as both an undergraduate and graduate student, I couldn’t agree more with you on your point regarding Samuelson. It was always very difficult for my classmates in economics to understand why I didn’t buy into all the mathematical modeling going on in economics. Modeling GDP just isn’t the same as predicting the enthalpy of a chemical reaction. I’ve not been involved in the economics field for quite some time (I’ve found that hard science pays better), but its still good to hear that someone on the inside agrees with me.
Matthew McWilliams | Dec 15, 2009 | Reply