Economics Notes, Part 2: J. Kenneth Galbraith
I’d like to devote one post to J. Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith was Havard professor in econ. During his lifetime he was a tremendously influential economist and wrote a multitude of books. He was famous for poking and prying at the classical economics thought. From his quotes he appears to have been ruthlessly satirical (or just plain ruthless) about various things he found absurd:
Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.
I came across a similar idea last year when reading “The European Dream” by Jeremy Rifkin. Rifkin discussed the application of the GNP and how it was not necessarily a measure of the “good” of a society. Rifkin made his point by claiming that the GNP goes up due to any economic activity; Activity that might otherwise reflect poorly on a society- such as building thousands of prisons.
Essentially we are looking at the assumption that more money/consumption = happiness/goodness
Galbraith challenged econ assumptions, and probably ran into problems that generated the following quotes:
Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof
I react to what is necessary. I would like to eschew any formula. There are some things where the government is absolutely inevitable, which we cannot get along without comprehensive state action. But there are many things — producing consumer goods, producing a wide range of entertainment, producing a wide level of cultural activity — where the market system, which independent activity is also important, so I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, “I’m in favor of privatization,” or, “I’m deeply in favor of public ownership.” I’m in favor of whatever works in the particular case
There’s a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.
Kenneth Galbraith, however, insisted that uncomfortable questions be asked despite the difficulty with which people change their mind- despite the dichotomies of people’s thought or the particular disposition of the majority:
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.
People are the common denominator of progress. So… no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development. … But we are coming to realize … that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.
Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
Galbraith also had a very scathing ironic humor to many of his sayings, this next quote (in a humorous twist on a familiar Socratic quote) appears to refer to the certitude with which economists flaunt their knowledge:
One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.
And finally, I’d like to end with a quote that I found sums up the whole theme of the current “market system” :
By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.