John Kenneth Galbraith -- a tall friend of the state

In March of 1997 I had to help the famous, tall, 88-year-old liberal economist down a set of lobby steps but couldn't keep up with his wise and witty mind.

Keeping up with John Kenneth Galbraith

1997, March

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith is not listed in the dictionary, but he ought to be.

Now 88, the author of "The Affluent Society" and dozens of other economics books has had a long career in national and international politics, exclusively on the liberal Democrat side of the fence.

With media guru Marshall McLuhan, Galbraith has been called one of "the most famous Canadians America has ever produced." During World War II he set up and ran Franklin Roosevelt's wartime price-control system. Later he was friend and adviser to presidents Truman, Kennedy and Johnson.

Galbraith is famous for many things — his lucid writing, his wit and his resolute belief in government as a means to improve society. He is also famous for his height — 6 feet 8 inches.

Galbraith was guest speaker at Professor Robert Hazo's American Experience distinguished lecture series last night on the University of Pittsburgh campus, where his topic was "Liberalism in America's Political Future."

During an afternoon interview in the lobby of the University Club, Galbraith had no trouble demonstrating why he is so famous.

Q: You're probably one of the few economists — maybe you and Milton Friedman — who are known to the general public. What's the difference between someone like you and Friedman?

A: As far as Milton is concerned, it's the difference between right and wrong. Milton has a narrow formula for guiding economics by controlling our money supply. I see economic policy as a much more comprehensive thing.

Milton is not terribly concerned with social matters. I see it as a major problem of economics that there are large numbers of people who are deplorably poor. Urban poverty is perhaps the great unsolved problem of economics.

Q: And Friedman would say, "What happened to the several trillion dollars we've spent since 1965 trying to remediate that problem?"

A: The answer, which even Milton should know, is that things would have been much worse if we hadn't spent that money. Take, for example, if we were to cancel Social Security tomorrow. What would be the effect of that on the enormously large share of the population that now depends on Social Security payments? Does Milton ignore that?

Q: You've written many books. Which is your favorite?

A: I suppose the one that attracted the greatest attention was "The Affluent Society," where I talked about private affluence and public squalor, raised the question of the environment and gave the world a phrase I still keep encountering in the newspapers every day, namely the concept of "the conventional wisdom."

Q: Are there books that you'd like to edit or re-write based on what you know now?

A: I've done that to some extent. I've published later editions of both "The Affluent Society" and my other widely read book, "The New Industrial State." And, a new edition of my book on the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 ("The Great Crash"), stimulated by the present insanity in the stock market, is about to come out.

Q: What do think about the current stock market?

A: To put it in the simplest terms, the number of firms investing in the stock market, including a number of mutual funds, substantially exceeds the intelligence available to manage them. We have a balloon situation and we should bear in mind that balloons when punctured do not subside gradually.

Q: Of the four presidents you worked for, who would you name as the greatest or most important?

A: FDR. I belonged to the generation which didn't know what it believed on any issue until FDR had spoken; then our belief was complete.

Q: What about FDR's legacy, the so-called Welfare State. It's in disarray, it's being whittled away by conservatives who say that maybe its days are over.

A: Conservatives have been saying that for all of 50 years. But when a serious attack was made on the Welfare State, as for example by the late Newt Gingrich, look what happened.

I suppose the very centerpiece of the Roosevelt development was Social Security. I invite any available conservative to attack Social Security. It's a wonderful formula for ending his career.

Q: Do you have any doubt about Social Security's need to be reformed or changed in a way to meet all the demographic. . . ?

A: Not seriously. And I certainly wouldn't put Social Security funds into the stock market.

Q: What's your definition of liberalism and has it changed?

A: No. I have the same definition, which is a sensible, non-ideological balance between what we rely on the market for and what we rely on the state for.

Where the market works, we leave action to the market. Where government is essential — we've mentioned Social Security, for example, or a myriad of other social action which is necessary in a complex society — we're for government action.

But we regard this as not something that is ideologically determined, but something that has to be decided on the merits of a particular case. That's the essence of my lecture.

Q: I saw an article in Maclean's magazine that called you "one of the last lions of liberalism."

A: No. No. I consider myself in the inevitable current of liberalism.

Q: Are you worried at all about the direction of America?

A: I would stop writing and stop talking if I weren't expecting continuing concerns. I'm a little bit concerned by the feeling that there is some great conservative thrust in our time.

I think this is something that is just in theory, but when you come right down to the circumstances, whether it's Social Security or medical care or even welfare, one discovers that what has long been liberal legislation is much more essential and much harder to dispense with than imagined.

We live in a time of conservative oratory, but relatively little conservative action.

Q: So you're not worried about the disappearance of, ah. . . .

A: The New Deal?

Q: Yes.

A: That is one thing you should take up with Newt Gingrich. He's had some experience with what happens to anybody that does that.

Extra JKG piece

In May of 2008 I wrote this column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Remembering John Galbraith's Attack on Affluence

In 1958 liberal John Kenneth Galbraith wrote his classic 'The Affluent Society,' an enormously popular book on the 'economics of abundance' that complained that while America's private sector was becoming ever-more wealthy it was doing so at the expense of a squalid and underfunded public sector.

The Harvard economics professor, famous for his accessible writing style, criticized America's consumer-mad economy and the virtually unchallenged notion by policymakers that higher and higher economic growth was a measure of economic prosperity.

Galbraith, who coined the eternal term 'conventional wisdom' to describe the 1950s economic thinking he did not agree with, also expressed his dislike for advertising, fretted about the growing gap between rich and poor and the damage the economy was doing to the environment, and called for lots more government spending on things like education and health care.

Conservatives and libertarians hated 'The Affluent Society,' of course. Liberals and socialists loved it madly -- and still do. It sold more than 1 million copies, sat on The New York Times bestseller list for almost the entire year and was a fixture on high school and college reading lists through the '60s.

Galbraith's critiques of growth, opulence and advertising have since become part of the liberal mainstream, but it's not John Chamberlain's fault. In 1958 the libertarian-leaning conservative writer and editor reviewed 'The Affluent Society' unfavorably for The Freeman, the magazine of the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education.

Chamberlain pointed out the unflattering truth that Galbraith was an elitist who didn't like individual human beings very much.

He let 'his skills spin off into social essays that betray an essential disrespect for individual human beings as such,' Chamberlain wrote. 'Professing to care for humane goals, he sees people only in the mass.

'To Galbraith, it is the 'countervailing power' of such large and amorphous entities as the 'farm bloc' or the big industrial union or the National Association of Manufacturers or the ADA or the 'consumers,' which counts. It is never Joe or Jim, and it is never you and me.'

Chamberlain said 'there is just enough truth in Galbraith's picture of what American people have chosen to do with their riches to make his quest of 'social balance' seem plausible. But Galbraith is not willing to limit himself to the role of being a critic of taste.

"Instead of pointing out to people that they might better put their money into education on a private basis that would permit free choice of teachers or into utility cars with a low gas consumption rate and a short wheel base or into voluntary medical cooperatives, all of which would permit an individual the mature exercise of his own will, Galbraith falls back into a Papa Knows Best attitude. To protect people against Madison Avenue, he would send the tax collector around to relieve them of a good part of their income.

'Personally, I find this superior, top-down attitude offensive. It is an echo of Thurman Arnold's old theory that the government should treat people as the superintendent of an insane asylum treats his charges, as wards to be watched over and provided for.’

In conclusion Chamberlain said, presciently, that Galbraith's famous book 'contains the subtle poison that will someday drug us into reconstituting society in the image of a public institution, with only the 'planning' officials exercising the power of choice.

If enough people listen to Galbraith, the 'underlying population,' to use Veblen's old phrase, will simply be on the receiving end of whatever the government wants to dispense in the name of 'social balance.' And the 'social balance' will be maladministered, at that.'