NEW YORK, Dec. 29 /The Providence Journal/ —When McGraw-Hill first published “Economics, an Introductory Analysis,” a review in Fortune magazine boldly predicted, “The next generation of college students, or a very large part of it, will learn its economics from Paul A. Samuelson.”
Those words were written in 1948. Yet they are no less true today. When Paul Samuelson passed away this month, he left behind a legacy of scholarship that will continue shaping the study of economics for generations to come.
During a life spanning 94 years, Samuelson transformed economics for the modern age. While fellow economists will remember the MIT professor for bringing advanced mathematics to his work, millions of non-economics majors will remember him for bringing something simpler — clarity.
In the wake of the Great Depression, Samuelson grasped that our national political discourse would increasingly revolve around economics. And as a result, the future of our democracy would depend on democratizing the subject into a language all people could understand.
No one gave more to this cause than Samuelson. At a time when many textbooks still focused on 19th Century models, Samuelson set out to give American students their first taste of Keynesian economics. He later claimed to have “sweated blood” designing an introductory textbook that provided a comprehensive yet comprehensible overview.
As he drafted the book, Samuelson never forgot his own experiences studying economics as a college student during the Great Depression. He remembered the growing disconnect between the material he learned inside the classroom and the problems he saw outside.
With his new textbook, Samuelson pledged to close that gap.
“Today the nonspecialist in physics deserves and expects to learn about atomic energy and nuclear structure in his first year of study, rather than to remain bogged down in elementary experiments on falling bodies . . . ,” he wrote in the preface. “Why then should teachers of economics withhold from the first-year course the really interesting and vital problems of over-all economic policy?”
The pages that followed did not disappoint. They addressed some of the period’s great issues, including Social Security, unemployment and the economics of depressions.
As the years passed, economics never lost its timely edge. Every three or four years — later with help of co-author William Nordhaus — Samuelson updated the text to reflect the evolving political landscape as well as the changing interests of his students. New sections addressed issues ranging from race and income inequality to stagflation and gasoline rationing.
Now in its 19th edition, Samuelson’s masterpiece has been translated into more than 40 languages and has sold millions of copies around the globe. For nearly three decades, it held the title of bestselling economics textbook in the world. And today it has entered the digital age as an eBook.
Samuelson fully understood the magnitude of his influence. “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws — or crafts its advanced treaties — if I can write its economics textbooks,” he once said. By giving generations of students their first introduction to economics, he helped shape the direction of our economic policy at home and around the world.
In time, the number of Samuelson’s disciples grew. Presidents, members of Congress and foreign leaders looked to him for advice. And fittingly, Samuelson lived to see many of the theories that he helped popularize during the course of his life deployed to prevent the recent financial crisis from turning into another Great Depression.
During these times of economic turbulence, the world will deeply miss the wisdom and insights of Paul Samuelson. Yet we can be confident that in the millions who have learned from his teachings, the father of modern economics will have many descendents.
