''The Affluent Society'' is a 1958 (4th edition revised 1984) book by Harvard economist

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...

. The book sought to clearly outline the manner in which the post–

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

United States was becoming

wealthy Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...

in the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

but remained poor in the

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, inf ...

, lacking social and physical infrastructure, and perpetuating income disparities. The book sparked much public discussion at the time. It is also credited with popularizing the term "

conventional wisdom The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy. Etymology The term is often credited to the economist John ...

". Many of the ideas presented were later expanded and refined in Galbraith's 1967 book, ''

The New Industrial State ''The New Industrial State'' is a 1967 book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Three revised editions appeared in 1972, 1978 and 1985. Discussion In it, Galbraith asserts that within the industrial sectors of modern capitalist societies, the traditiona ...

''. Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

Robert Reich Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in ...

called it his favorite on the subject of economics. The Modern Library placed the book at no. 46 on its list of the top 100 English-language non-fiction books of the 20th century.

Themes

* The "central tradition" in economics, created by Adam Smith and expanded by

David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a ...

and

Thomas Robert Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book '' An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Ma ...

in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, is poorly suited to the affluent post–World War II U.S. society. This is so because the "central tradition" economists wrote during a time of widespread poverty where production of basic goods was necessary. U.S. society, at the time of Galbraith's writing, was one of widespread affluence, where production was based on luxury goods and wants. * Using production, or

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is oft ...

, as a measure of U.S. society's well-being omits important measures of social and personal well-being. GDP also neglects differences in output. For example, "An increased supply of educational services has a standing in the total not different in kind from an increased output of television receivers."Galbraith, John Kenneth. ''The Affluent Society'' Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 1998. p 100, 109, 158, 170, 259, 260 Production has risen to its paramount but unwarranted status because it is held in grace by both Democrats and Republicans. Galbraith writes:

On the importance of production as a test of performance, there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats, right and left, white and minimally prosperous black, Catholic and Protestant. It is common ground for the Chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, the President of the United States Chamber of Commerce and the President of the National Association of Manufactures.

* American demand for goods and services is not organic. That is, the demands are not internally created by a consumer. These such demands - food, clothes, and shelter - have been met for the vast majority of Americans. The new demands are created by advertisers and the "machinery for consumer-demand creation" that benefit from increased consumer spending. This exuberance in private production and consumption pushes out public spending and investment. He called this the dependence effect, a process by which "wants are increasingly created by the process by which they are satisfied". * Galbraith believes America must transition from a private production economy to a public investment economy. He advocates three large proposals: the elimination of poverty, government investment in public schools, and the growth of the "

New Class New class is used as a polemic term by critics of countries that followed the Soviet-type Communism to describe the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which arose in these states. Generally, the group known ...

." Galbraith outlines the two types of poverty to better understand the causes and potential remedies. Case poverty is related to a specific individual and insular poverty is an island where nearly everyone is poor. To fund social programs, Galbraith believes in the expanded use of consumption taxes. The "New Class" consists of schoolteachers, professors, surgeons, and electrical engineers. Galbraith ends the book with another appeal to the importance and need for investment in educating people: :“Whether the problem be that of a burgeoning population and of space in which to live with peace and grace, or whether it be the depletion of the materials which nature has stocked in the earth’s crust and which have been drawn upon more heavily in this century than in all previous time together, or whether it be that of occupying minds no longer committed to the stockpiling of consumer goods, the basic demand on America will be on its resources of intelligence and education.”

References

External links

Abridgement of ''The Affluent Society''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Affluent Society 1958 non-fiction books 1958 in economics Books by John Kenneth Galbraith 1940s in the United States 1950s in the United States Houghton Mifflin books Sociology books

Themes

See also

References

External links