Bertram Myron Gross (1912 – March 12, 1997) was an American
social scientist
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
, federal bureaucrat and Professor of
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
at
Hunter College
Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...
(CUNY). He is known from his book ''
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America'' from 1980, and as primary author of the ''
HumphreyHawkins Full Employment Act''.
Early life and education
Bertram Myron Gross was born in 1912 in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
. He received his
B.A.
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...
in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
and
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and his
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
in English from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
.
[Kenneth N. Gilpin (1997) "Bertram M. Gross, 84, Author of Full Employment Bills of 1944-45". In: ''New York Times'', March 15, 1997.]
Career
In the late 1930s, he started as a federal bureaucrat in Washington. From 1941 to 1945 he was a staff member of a number of
Senate committees. In 1940 he was appointed Chief, Research and Hearing for the
Special Committee to Study Problems of American Small Business. With funding from the
Carnegie Foundation of New York, he took responsibility for producing ''The Fate of Small Business in Nazi Germany'', written by
A. R. L. Gurland,
Otto Kirchheimer
Otto Kirchheimer (; 11 November 1905, Heilbronn – 22 November 1965, Alexandria, Virginia) was a German jurist of Jewish ancestry and political scientist of the Frankfurt School whose work essentially covered the state and its constitution.
Ki ...
and
Franz Neumann.
He also subsequently wrote the Roosevelt-Truman full employment bills of 1944 and 1945, which led to the ''
Employment Act of 1946
The Employment Act of 1946 ch. 33, section 2, 60 Stat. 23, codified as , is a United States federal law. Its main purpose was to lay the responsibility of economic stability of inflation and unemployment onto the federal government. The Act state ...
.''
From 1946 to 1952 he was executive secretary of the President's
Council of Economic Advisers
The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the president of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...
and was among those who advocated making
Gross National Product
The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total amount of factor incomes earned by the residents of a country. It is equal to gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes received from n ...
a key measurement of the economy, which he later regretted. "I was one of the key figures pressing for it then. Who knew that pushing for growth would distort all human values and priorities?," he said.
In 1953, he moved with his family to
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
, where he served as an economic advisor in the Prime Minister's Office and as a visiting professor at the
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
, where he established their program in Public Administration.
He returned to the United States in the 1960s and joined the faculty of
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
in the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Maxwell School) is the professional public policy school of Syracuse University, a private research university in Syracuse, New York. The school is organized in 11 academic departments and 1 ...
. In 196162, he was a Fellow at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research institution at Stanford University designed to advance the frontiers of knowledge about human behavior and society, and contribute to the resoluti ...
, Palo Alto; and, in 196263, he was the Leatherbee Lecturer at the Harvard Business School.
In 1970, Bertram Gross was president of the
Society for General Systems Research
The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is: to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their i ...
. From 1970 to 1982 he was Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Urban Affairs at Hunter College and the
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University ...
.
Personal life
He was married to Nora Faine Gross and was survived by his second wife, Kusum Singh. He was the father of four sons, including Nobel Prize winner
David J. Gross.
Publications
Gross wrote several books and articles. A selection:
[A full list can be found a]
getcited.org
. Retrieved June 8, 2011.
* 1953, "The Legislative Struggle: A Study in Social Combat", New York: McGraw Hill.
* 1954, ''The hard money crusade'', with Wilfred Lumer, Washington: Public Affairs Institute.
* 1963, ''An annotated bibliography on national economic planning'', Syracuse, N.Y.: Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
* 1964, ''The managing of organizations: The administrative struggle New York: Free Press of Glencoe.''
* 1966, ''The state of the nation : social systems accounting'', New York : Tavistock Publications, 1966, 166 p.
* 1967, (eds.) ''Social goals and indicators for American society'', Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science.
* 1967, ''Action under planning: The guidance of economic development'', New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
* 1968, ''Organizations and their managing'', New York: Free Press.
* 1968, '' A great society?'', New York: Basic Books.
* 1970, ''Political intelligence for America's future'', with Michael Springer, Philadelphia: None.
* 1978, ''The Legislative Struggle: A Study in Social Combat'',Reprint of 1953 book. Conn.: Greenwood Press.
* 1980, ''
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America'', New York: M. Evans.
* 1993, ''Legislative strategy: Shaping public policy'', with Edward V. Schneier, New York: St. Martin's Press.
* 1993, ''Congress today'', with Edward V. Schneier, New York: St. Martin's Press.
* 1993, ''Human rights for the 2lst century, foundations for responsible hope: A U.S. post Soviet dialogue Armonk,'', with Peter H. Juviler, V.A. Kartashkin & E.A. Lukasheva (eds.), New York: M.E. Sharpe.
References
External links
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in Americaat
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gross, Bertram Myron
1912 births
1997 deaths
American economics writers
American political writers
American anti-globalization writers
Hunter College faculty
Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Syracuse University faculty
American systems scientists
Jewish scientists
Jewish American social scientists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers
Harvard Business School people
20th-century American Jews
Presidents of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
Writers from Philadelphia