Robert Theobald was a private consulting economist and futurist author. In economics, he was best known for his writings on the economics of abundance and his advocacy of a Basic Income Guarantee. Theobald was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution in 1964, and later listed in the top 10 most influential living futurists in The Encyclopedia of the Future.

Life & Work

Robert Theobald was born in India in 1929, the son of a British businessman. He moved to England at age 16 (1945), and got his higher education in economics at Cambridge, then lived for three years in Paris. Eventually he continued his studies at Harvard University, in the late 1950s.

As an economist and futurist, Theobald had a global or planetary perspective. He wrote books, prepared and appeared on broadcasts, and lectured around the world to governments, businesses and organizations.

Theobald questioned and criticized conventional confidence in economic growth, in technology, and in the culture of materialism - all of which he considered to be damaging to the environment while failing to provide opportunity and income for many of the world's people. He warned against trying to maintain, and to spread or mimic worldwide, the American standard of living of the late 20th century.

Despite his criticism of some aspects and effects of technology, Theobald saw tremendous potential in communications technology like on-line, personal computers (which in the 1980s he termed "micro-computers"), seeing these as tools for pooling the thoughts and opinions of very large numbers of individuals spread widely, geographically.

Theobald was an expositor and popularizer of such now-accepted concepts as "networking," "win/win," "systemic thinking," and "communications era."

Robert Theobald died of esophageal cancer at his home in Spokane, Washington

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

, shortly after returning from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Quotes

"What's startling to me is that when I started talking about ideas like these 30 years ago, they were so new and strange that people looked at me as if I had two heads. In retrospect, I think I was looked on as something of a cultural clown - a "crazy" who was fun to listen to. The reaction I get now worries me a lot more, because what most people say is "Bob, today you're right, but we're not going to do anything about it."

"My goal is to create a situation of full unemployment--a world in which people do not have to hold a job. And I believe that this kind of world can actually be achieved."

External links

• Robert Theobald Home Page
• Robert Theobald - Portrait Of A Political Instigator Interview at The Context Institute.