Daniyal Khan is an undergraduate student at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He is working on his thesis “Heilbroner and Weber: Economics as a Science, Economics as a Vocation.” This contribution was stimulated by his research on that project. -Jeff

In A Brief History of Economics: Artful Approaches to the Dismal Science, Ray Canterberry states that Robert Heilbroner:

…attributes his social conscience to his feelings of indignation when he realized that his mother could give orders to her chauffeur only because his beloved “Willy” needed the money and she had it. “Willy” was an intimate yet “William” was a servant, distinguished only by the formal driver’s uniform that he wore. (pg. 334)

He concludes the section on Heilbroner’s vision of capitalism by noting that “his [i.e, Heilbroner’s] vision is little removed from his early concern about his mother’s wealth being the source of domination of poor Willy Gerkin, his surrogate father.” (pg. 337) If it is indeed the case that this particular life-experience was central in shaping Heilbroner’s vision of capitalism, then it gives way to a few interesting and illuminating implications.

Firstly, it challenges Heilbroner’s own contention expressed in Behind the Veil of Economics: Essays in the Worldly Philosophy that visions can hardly be traced back to the experiences that determine them:

At this deepest level of social inquiry [i.e. at the level of vision] our analytic and expository powers diminish almost to the vanishing point. We can say very little as to the sources of these constellations that we project into the social universe. Few of us can trace to their social or personal roots the experiences that frame our own visions. (pg. 198)

Secondly, it shows how consciousness of the social expression of Marxian self-alienation – the self-alienation of the proletariat from the bourgeois capitalist class – in a member of the capitalist class can lead to a far reaching vision and imagination of the latent possibilities within capitalism as broadly defined by Heilbroner.

From these two implications, I wish to turn towards a . . .

Read more: Masters and Servants in the U.S. and Pakistan: Insights and Missed Opportunities