The Man Who Told the TruthRobert Heilbroner fessed up to the failure of socialism David Boaz Robert Heilbroner, the bestselling writer of economics, died early this month at the age of 85. He and John Kenneth Galbraith may well have sold more economics books than all other economists combined. Alas, their talents lay more in the writing than the economics. Heilbroner was an outspoken socialist; if only a libertarian could write an introductory book on economics that could—like Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers—sell 4 million copies. Reading some of Heilbroner's essays over the years, I admired his honesty about the meaning...