About this title: Galbraith's arguments are discussed by a group of economists in regards to current controversies and problems. Topics covered range from globalization and the role of the state to redistributive economic policies. The result is a collection that pays tribute to one of the most prominent, and yet still contemporarily relevant, economists of the twentieth century.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: New American Library
Date Published: 1975
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. 1975 Mentor paperback. NOT EX LIB! Pages are clean & bright with light wear, pages lightly tanned, spine is creased, moderate edgewear & cover scuffing. Glued binding. Mentor Books. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (T)
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780395172063ISBN:0395172063
Description: Good. 258-B-Y. Ex-library. Packaging is worn. Spine is cracked. Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Date Published: 1973
Description: Good. 95-X Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pelican
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780140218909ISBN:0140218904
Description: Very Good. 1977 softcover, book is very tight, covers show creases to spine, some shelfwear to edges, rubbing, name on FEP, no other markings. read more
Edition: Book Club Edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)
Date Published: 1973
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. 334 p. Audience: General/trade. great condition, slight wear on edges of dustjacket, tight binding, slight yellowing of the pages. read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: New American Library
Description: Good. B000MHV93I Mass Market Paperback. VG/No Jacket. Tight copy, lightly yellowed with inscription to end papers. Wraps bumped an rubbed. books may have some minor wearhouse damage. Stickers may be on spine or covers. read more
"This was part of a trilogy that began with *The Affluent Society* (1957), and continued with *The New Industrial State* (1967). However, as Galbraith readily concedes, he learned a great deal in the intervals between writing these books. In 1958, Galbraith's political career was on an upward trajectory; by 1967 he had ruptured with Pres. Johnson over the Vietnam War, and in 1974 he had become reconciled to life in the political and academic wilderness.
For strangers to Galbraith's views, it is necessary to understand that he was first and foremost a student of what was, rather than idealized systems. Hence, many of his critics, faced with a dualistic world view, will accuse him of favoring a command economy, on the grounds that he was critical of the pretensions of capitalist economies. I hope readers will immediately see the error of this way of thinking: a clear-sighted analysis of a system that embraces the whole of a society's transactions cannot possibly be reduced to a dualistic judgment.
Second, Galbraith was an institutionalist. While orthodox schools of economics tend to emphasize the inherent, automatic nature of all economic transactions regardless of the nature of the agents, institutionalists such as T. Veblen, J. Commons, C. Ayres, and Galbraith identify the economic agents--viz., institutions in the society--as the decisive factor. Galbraith frequently aroused a lot of ire by pointing out the shortcomings of a social science (economics) being dominated by political demagogues, although he preferred to say this using dry wit.
In this book, he unites several concepts into an explanatory system. One of these is the concept of the "convenient social virtue," the tendency of people to profusely admire traits in other people they are not prepared to compensate; hence, the admiration of workers whose sense of duty and self-sacrifice transcends any rational economic explanation. He applies this analysis to women, who remain an undercompensated cadre of the workforce. Another concept is that of "the market system" as distinct from the "planning system"; usually economists and demagogues speak of the public sector [bad] versus the private sector [good], as if there were nothing but kinship between the multinational corporation and the corner espresso cart.
Galbraith explains that, while the giant industrial firm has very different needs and wants from small shops, it is likely to be very closely aligned to the needs and wants of those holding political power. Hence, the boundary between public and private sectors is less meaningful than that between the planning and the market systems. While the market system is admired, it is also punished with far greater danger and with "self-exploitation" by desperate proprietors.
The illusion that we live in an economy that is a free market, with an adversarial relationship to the state, is a dangerous one. First, it leads to people assuming that problems of waste and unemployment will solve themselves once an obvious regulatory obstacle is removed. In reality, we live in a planned economy ridden by systems of price controls and monopoly, and that planning is designed to serve industrial management. Assuming the opposite, of course, will only make such problems worse.
Second, it is dangerous because we overlook the influence of the planning system on the basic purpose of the state. The insistence of economist-demagogues is that the state is miraculously devoted to the toiling masses, and intent on expropriating the creative fountainhead, John Galt and Henry Reardon. Militarism is assumed to be therefore a rational response to a genuine foreign threat; whereas if the influence is understood to be symmetric, or even understood to flow the other direction, then one will expect militarism to serve the planning system and one will be skeptical of it.
There's a lot more in this book, and I believe it deserves a far better review than I've supplied. But I hope this gives a taste of the issues that Galbraith addresses."
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