Born on 16 June 1898 in Brooklyn, New York, he was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He attended the City College of New York, graduating with a BA in English in 1918. He then completed an MA at Columbia University in 1919. He intended to study international law and travelled to France in 1921 to study it at the University of Paris (while also learning French). His previous pacifism turned to pessimism when France occupied the Ruhr in 1923 and he abandoned his interest in international law, focusing instead on economics. He completed a PhD in 1924 on Thorstein Veblen.