Gunnar Myrdal

Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) was a Swedish economist, sociologist, and public intellectual whose work reshaped how scholars and policymakers understood inequality, development, and the limits of objective social science. Born in Skattungbyn, Sweden, he studied law and economics at Stockholm University and became a leading figure in the Stockhom School of economics alongside Erik Lindahl and Bertil Ohlin. His 1944 An American Dilemma, commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation, provided the most comprehensive analysis of American racial inequality to that date and influenced the 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board decision. His later Economic Theory and Under-Developed Regions (1957) and monumental Asian Drama (1968) established the theory of circular cumulative causation — the principle that advantages and disadvantages compound through self-reinforcing feedback loops rather than self-correcting toward equilibrium.