Gary Becker
Becker was one of the first economists to study topics that were usually researched in sociology. He studied family organization in new and interesting ways. He studied racial discrimination, crime, and rational addiction. He said that many different types of human behavior that seem self-destructive or irrational can be seen as rational and utility-maximizing. He also studied altruism in human behavior. He showed that sometimes altruism was really to help oneself. He was a strong supporter of studying human capital. According to Milton Friedman, he was "the greatest social scientist who has lived and worked" in the second part of the twentieth century.