Herbert Gintis (February 11, 1940 – January 5, 2023) was an American economist,
behavioral scientist
Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through naturalistic o ...
, and educator known for his theoretical contributions to
sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within t ...
, especially
altruism
Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...
,
cooperation
Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English) is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit. Many animal a ...
, epistemic
game theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...
,
gene-culture coevolution
Dual inheritance theory (DIT), also known as gene–culture coevolution or biocultural evolution, was developed in the 1960s through early 1980s to explain how human behavior is a product of two different and interacting evolutionary processes: gen ...
,
efficiency wages
The term efficiency wages (or rather "efficiency earnings") was introduced by Alfred Marshall to denote the wage per efficiency unit of labor. Marshallian efficiency wages would make employers pay different wages to workers who are of different ef ...
,
strong reciprocity Strong reciprocity is an area of research in behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary anthropology on the predisposition to cooperate even when there is no apparent benefit in doing so. This topic is particularly interesting ...
, and
human capital
Human capital is a concept used by social scientists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a substantial ...
theory. Throughout his career, he worked extensively with economist
Samuel Bowles. Their landmark book, ''
Schooling in Capitalist America'', had multiple editions in five languages since it was first published in 1976. Their book, ''A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution'' was published by Princeton University Press in 2011.
Life and career
Gintis was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, where his father had a retail furniture business. He grew up there and later in
Bala Cynwyd
Bala Cynwyd ( ) is a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. It is located on the Philadelphia Main Line in Southeastern Pennsylvania, bordering the western edge of Philadelphia at U.S. Route 1 (City Avenue). It was originally two separ ...
(just outside Philadelphia). Gintis completed his undergraduate degree at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in three years, one of which was spent at the
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, and received his B.A. in mathematics in 1961. He then enrolled at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
for post-graduate work in mathematics. After receiving his M.A. in 1962, he grew disillusioned with the subject area, and although still registered at Harvard, became a sandal maker with a shop in
Harvard Square
Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the busin ...
. During that time, he became very active in the student movements of the 1960s, including the
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
and grew increasingly interested in
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and economics. In 1963, he switched his PhD program at Harvard from mathematics to economics, completing his PhD in 1969 with his dissertation, ''Alienation and power: towards a radical welfare economics''. He was subsequently hired as an assistant professor in the
Harvard Graduate School of Education
The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is the education school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, it was the first school to grant the EdD degree and the first Harvard school ...
and then as an assistant professor and later associate professor in Harvard's Economics Department.
[Alberto, Carlos Torres (2013)]
''Education, Power, and Personal Biography: Dialogues With Critical Educators''
pp. 107–129. Routledge.
Towards the end of his postgraduate studies in economics, Gintis had come into contact with the economist
Samuel Bowles who had returned to Harvard after research work in Nigeria. It was to be the beginning of a collaboration that has lasted throughout their careers. In 1968 Gintis and Bowles were part of a group of graduate students and young faculty members at Harvard that included
Michael Reich, Richard Edwards,
Stephen Marglin
Stephen Alan Marglin is an American economist. He is the Walter S. Barker Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a fellow of the Econometric Society, and a founding member of the World Economics Association.
Background
Marglin grew up in ...
, and Patricia Quick. The group held seminars to develop their ideas on a new economics that would encompass issues of
alienation of labor
Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement (German: ''Entfremdung'') of people from aspects of their human nature (''Gattungswesen'', 'species-essence') as a consequence of the division of labor and living in a society of strat ...
, racism, sexism, and imperialism. Many of their ideas were tried out in a Harvard class which they collectively taught, "The Capitalist Economy: Conflict and Power". They also became founding members of the
Union of Radical Political Economists.
In 1974 Gintis, along with Bowles,
Stephen Resnick
Stephen Alvin Resnick (; October 24, 1938 – January 2, 2013) was an American heterodox economist. He was well known for his work (much of it written together with Richard D. Wolff) on Marxian economics, economic methodology, and class analysis ...
,
Richard D. Wolff
Richard David Wolff (born April 1, 1942) is an American Marxian economist known for his work on economic methodology and class analysis. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor ...
and Richard Edwards, was hired by the Economics Department at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...
as part of the "radical package" of economists. Bowles and Gintis published their landmark book, ''
Schooling in Capitalist America'', in 1976.
[Apple, Michael and Giroux, Henry (1995) "Critical Pedagogy in the United States" i]
''Social Theory and Education: A Critique of Theories of Social and Cultural Reproduction''
p. 311. SUNY Press. Their second joint book, ''Democracy and Capitalism'', published a decade later, was a critique of both
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
and orthodox Marxism and outlined their vision of "postliberal democracy".
Their most recent book, ''A Cooperative Species'', was published in 2011. Like Gintis's 2009 ''The Bounds of Reason'', the book reflects his increasing emphasis since the 1990s on the unification of economic theory with sociobiology and other behavioral sciences.
[Foster, Jacob G. (September 2012)]
"''A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution'' by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis"
''American Journal of Sociology
The ''American Journal of Sociology'' is a peer-reviewed bi-monthly academic journal that publishes original research and book reviews in the field of sociology and related social sciences. It was founded in 1895 as the first journal in its disci ...
'', Vol. 118, No. 2, pp. 501-504. Retrieved 30 September 2014 via Jstor
JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
.
Gintis retired from the University of Massachusetts Amherst as
professor emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
in 2003. In 2014, he was a visiting professor in the Economics Department of
Central European University
Central European University (CEU) is a private research university accredited in Austria, Hungary, and the United States, with campuses in Vienna and Budapest. The university is known for its highly intensive programs in the social sciences and ...
where he taught since 2005, visiting professor at the
University of Siena
The University of Siena ( it, Università degli Studi di Siena, abbreviation: UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called ''Studium Senese'', the institution was founded in 1240 ...
, a position he held since 1989, and an external professor at the
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, includ ...
where he taught since 2001.
Gintis was a prolific book reviewer, having published over 500 book reviews on
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
.
Gintis died on January 5, 2023, at the age of 82.
Books
In addition to numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, Gintis has authored or co-authored the following books:
*
*
::Also as:
[ Berger, Suzanne (8 June 1986)]
"Postliberal Vision"
''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
*
*
[Sigmund, Karl (November–December 2009)]
"The Loitering Presence of the Rational Actor"
''American Scientist
__NOTOC__
''American Scientist'' (informally abbreviated ''AmSci'') is an American bimonthly science and technology magazine published since 1913 by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. In the beginning of 2000s the headquarters was in New ...
''. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
*
*
*
From 1997 to 2006 Gintis and anthropologist
Robert Boyd co-chaired "Economic Environments and the Evolution of Norms and Preferences", a multidisciplinary research project funded by the
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...
. Much of the research stemming from the project has been published in two books co-edited by Gintis and other project members:
*
*
[Schmid, Hans Bernhard (2009). "Social Identities in Experimental Economics" i]
''Plural Action: Essays in Philosophy and Social Science''
p. 87. Springer.
References
External links
*
Profileon
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...
*Video
Herbert Gintis on evolution and moralitydelivered at
Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, 9 July 2009 (official YouTube channel of Cambridge University).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gintis, Herbert
1940 births
2023 deaths
Behavioral economists
Game theorists
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Scientists from Philadelphia
Academic staff of Central European University
University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty
New York University faculty
Neuroeconomists
Santa Fe Institute people
Economists from Pennsylvania
21st-century American economists
People from Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania