FAREWELL JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH

From the LA Times via the Houston Chronicle:

Galbraith, economist, teacher and diplomat, dead at 97

Galbraith's fame was cemented with the 1958 publication of The Affluent Society, a phrase that soon worked its way into our language, and The New Industrial State, a follow-up work published in 1967. His books appeared at a time when America was without peer as an economic power.

Galbraith, an esteemed Harvard University professor, argued that the free-market economy was a myth. Giant corporations essentially operated free of competition, he said, often turning out frivolous goods for an ever increasingly consumer-minded society, while the capitalistic economy ignored more pressing social needs.

"Americans still have an extraordinary capacity to ignore poverty," Galbraith told an interviewer in 1983.

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I think that last sentence explains why I respected him.

As far as I can tell, the free market hasn't become any less of a myth, but corporate power has evolved, going beyond simple influence of government into outright control. And ignoring poverty continues to be an enormous issue. Hurricane Katrina showed everybody how bad things are, but not much seems to be changing in the aftermath. What we need today, more than ever, are more outspoken economists who factor social issues into their number crunching--Paul Krugman isn't enough.

Farewell John Kenneth Galbraith.

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