John Kenneth Galbraith Dead at 97

Economist championed social justice

By Michael Jay Friedman
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- John Kenneth Galbraith, the public intellectual whose career transcended his formal training as an economist to encompass the worlds of politics, diplomacy and social analysis, died April 29 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 97.

Drawing on insights of the British economist John Maynard Keynes and the American sociologist Thorstein Veblin, Galbraith enunciated a broad vision of the relationships between government, labor and business in the modern economy. His challenge to the assumed link between increasing material production and social health anticipated the work of the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and the "post-materialist" school of economic thought.

John Kenneth Galbraith was born October 15, 1908, in Ontario, Canada. After earning a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of California, Berkeley, Galbraith in 1934 joined the economics department at Harvard University, an affiliation he would maintain for much of his professional life. He became a U.S. citizen in 1937.

Like many academics of his generation, Galbraith served as an administrator in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. He emerged as a key figure at the Office of Price Administration, which regulated the prices of many goods during World War II. The position inevitably made Galbraith many enemies; in 1943, he accepted an editor position at Fortune, a leading business magazine.

Among Galbraith’s contributions to Fortune were articles explaining what came to be known as Keynesian economics. Keynes had argued that high unemployment reflected insufficient "demand," defined by Keynes as the sum of consumer expenditures, private investment and government spending. During hard times, when consumers and businesses could not spend or invest sufficiently, Keynes argued that increased government spending was necessary to increase demand and reduce unemployment. At Fortune, Galbraith honed an ability to explain these concepts to a general readership, a talent that would anchor much of his subsequent career.

A PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL

In 1952, Galbraith published American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power. He argued that even though large American corporations held unprecedented market power they also drove the technological progress necessary for future prosperity. Even so, checks on their influence --"countervailing power" Galbraith called it -- were needed. Government regulation and labor unions were two such forces. What American Capitalism lacked in scholarly evidence it made up for in winning style and readability. The book sold 400,000 copies, and established Galbraith as public intellectual of the first rank.

In 1958, Galbraith produced possibly his most influential work. The Affluent Society argued that the United States essentially had solved the problem of economic insecurity. With basic needs satisfied, Americans increasingly amassed private wealth in the form of heavily advertised but ultimately unnecessary consumer goods. Meanwhile, the nation remained poor in such "public goods" as health services, housing and transportation. Galbraith called on a "New Class" of educated, intellectual elites -- much like Galbraith himself, critics suggested -- to work toward redressing the balance between private wealth and "public squalor."

Even as The Affluent Society became a million-seller, Galbraith’s prescriptions of slower economic growth proved controversial. Leon Keyserling, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Harry S. Truman, wrote tartly: "It is really hard to imagine where Mr. Galbraith was when he wrote all this. I believe he was in Switzerland. Even today, there are millions of American families who cannot afford a nutritious diet." The dispute presaged subsequent divisions between "lunch-pail" and “life-style" American liberals.

With the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, Galbraith emerged as a presidential confidant. He argued vigorously against U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War. As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later recalled, "Ken Galbraith was particularly lethal because he presented his views with the wit Kennedy relished."

GALBRAITH IN INDIA

Galbraith served as Kennedy’s ambassador to India, a post he had desired since advising that nation’s Planning Commission in 1956. As ambassador, Galbraith established a strong personal relationship with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, offered economic advice and argued for increased U.S. aid. He also shaped Washington's pro-India tilt during the 1962 border conflict with China. Galbraith was an avid collector of Indian art and in 1968 co-authored with Mohinder Singh Randhawa Indian Painting: The Scenes, Themes and Legends.

In 1991, the Indian nation honored Galbraith with its second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, for his contributions to strengthening ties between India and United States. In accepting the award, Galbraith said, "Nothing gives me greater pride than looking back on my two excursions to what we shall one day call not only the world's largest democracy, but also the world's most successful democracy, both politically and economically."

Galbraith returned to Washington as an adviser to Kennedy’s successor but broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson over the Vietnam War. In 1967, he was elected chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, and helped turn that liberal political organization against the U.S. military engagement in Indochina and toward Johnson's 1968 political challenger, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota.

During the remainder of his long academic career, Galbraith produced more than 30 books and numerous articles and continued to advocate progressive economic and social policies. He appeared frequently on the Firing Line television program. Identified as "economist, gadfly," he sparred with that show’s conservative host, William F. Buckley. In a 2000 CNN interview, Buckley said of Galbraith: "It happens that John Kenneth Galbraith is a magnificent human being. I'm terribly fond of him."

Galbraith's later career saw the bestowal of numerous awards. In 1999, the Modern Library included The Affluent Society among the century’s 100 finest English language works of non-fiction. In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Galbraith the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Looking back on Galbraith’s life, Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat of Massachusetts, praised his "profound commitment to social justice." "I know how much President Kennedy admired his genius, valued his friendship and loved his extraordinary wit, and so did I," the senator continued. "Our affluent society is a fairer and more just society today because of Ken, and no one who knew him will ever forget him."

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