Robert Alexander Brady (May 13, 1901 – April 27, 1963) was an American economist who analyzed the dynamics of technological change and the structure of business enterprise. Brady developed a potent analysis of fascism and other emerging authoritarian economic and cultural practices. His essential work is “about power and the organization of power around the logic of technology as operated under capitalismâ€, yielding insights and understanding of modern society’s careening path between enhancing or destroying “life and cultureâ€.
In The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism (1937) and Business as a System of Power (1943), important works in historical and comparative economics, Brady traced the rise of bureaucratic centralism in Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the United States; and the emergence of an authoritarian model of economic growth and development.
Brady worked his way into and through college, doing undergraduate studies in history, philosophy, and mathematics at Reed College, where he graduated in 1923. He became an Instructor in European History upon his graduation. He began his graduate work at Cornell and went on to Columbia, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1929. He had been exposed to Veblen's thought all along the way, most systematically at Columbia, where he worked closely with John Maurice Clark. Brady took Veblen’s work as the point of departure for his own professional work. During his years of graduate study, he taught at Cornell, Hunter College, Cooper Union, and New York University. In 1929, Brady joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley.
Brady served as Chief of the Standards Division, Consumers Advisory Board, National Recovery Administration and on the staff of the National Resources Planning Board during the New Deal. He was one of the founders of Consumers Union, its vice president during its formative period, and head of Western Consumers Union.**
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