30.4.06
Adieu John Kenneth Galbraith
Economist, Humanist and a Great Thinker who, in each of his writings, forced Americans to reexamine their ultracapitalist and hawkish values, died yesterday at the age of 97 at a Cambridge hospital, Massachussets.
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Since March 29th 2006
6 comments:
“Economist, Humanist and a Great Thinker who, in each of his writings, forced Americans to reexamine their ultracapitalist and hawkish values”
Hmm… I’m so sure my dear Sophie: see JK Galbraith belongs to that generation of “Keynesian” American economists who came of age in the 1930’s.
Believe it or not, in the days of President Roosevelt America’s social and economic policies were the most “progressive” amongst Western nations: back then, France, the UK and Canada were the “ultra-capitalist hawks”
Bottom Line: Galbraith was part of the American mainstream till the late 1960’s, after which the center of gravity of US politics started to shift progressively to the right while he remained stubbornly faithful to his statist “social-democratic” faith...
Not sure about the man on the whole but I loved "The Affluent Society". Never read much else by him, though.
If it has to be capitalism, which is the only option offered to us now as citizens, then I prefer keynesian (civilised as opposed to savage)capitalism.
May God bless his soul. Galbraith was a Canadian economist who did much to popularize his "dismal" science.
He was a diehard Keynesian at a time when the monetarist's dominated economic policy in the US.
There is no such thing as civil or savage capitalism. Keynes theory of induced demand or fiscal policies were designed to save capitalism from itself.
The consequence is inflation and as long as it is mild then it is tolerable. With inflation,people have the perception that they are better off but in real terms they may be falling behind.
Unfortuately for us ,fiscal policy is not an option when you are debtor nation like the US.
Issam
Thanks Issam for this detailed comment. I admired Galbraith the man as someone who, very much like Keynes, tried to save capitalism fron itself by putting a human face on it and for this he should be thanked.
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