David Gordon; Economist and Author

David M. Gordon, 51, leading leftist economist, author and educator who wrote economic essays for The Times. His books, articles and many of his lectures as a professor at New York’s New School for Social Research centered on what he considered waste and inefficiency within America’s corporate management. His most recent book, “Fat and Mean,” to be published in May, claims that management remains bloated and inefficient despite recent downsizing in most companies. Gordon’s best-known book was “Beyond the Waste Land: A Democratic Alternative to Economic Decline” in 1983. Brought up in Berkeley in a family of distinguished economists, Gordon studied at Harvard University and taught briefly at Yale University before going to the New School in 1973. In his youth, he helped found an Atlanta-based civil rights newspaper, “The Southern Courier,” and the Union for Radical Political Economics. Gordon wrote frequently for The Times Business section as a member of its Board of Economists. On Saturday in New York of heart failure while awaiting a heart transplant.