The Affluent SocietyJohn Kenneth Galbraith's classic investigation of private wealth and public poverty in postwar America. With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith gets at the heart of what economic security means in The Affluent Society. Warning against individual and societal complacence about economic inequity, he offers an economic model for investing in public wealth that challenges "conventional wisdom" (a phrase he coined that has since entered our vernacular) about the long-term value of a production-based economy and the true nature of poverty. Both politically divisive and remarkably prescient, The Affluent Society is as relevant today on the question of wealth in America as it was in 1958. |
Contents
The Affluent Society | 1 |
The Concept of the Conventional Wisdom | 6 |
Economics and the Tradition of Despair | 18 |
The Uncertain Reassurance | 29 |
The American Mood | 41 |
The Marxian Pall | 55 |
Inequality | 66 |
Economic Security | 81 |
The Monetary Illusion | 166 |
Production and Price Stability | 177 |
The Theory of Social Balance | 186 |
The Investment Balance | 200 |
The Transition | 209 |
The Divorce of Production from Security | 217 |
The Redress of Balance | 223 |
The Position of Poverty | 234 |
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Adam Smith advance advertising affluent society aggregate demand Alfred Marshall American American liberal attitudes automobiles become behavior business cycle businessman capacity capital central tradition century Class competitive concern conflict conservatives consumer consumer debt conventional wisdom corporation cost David Ricardo debt decline demand depends depression economic security economists effect efficiency effort equality expanding fact firms fiscal policy goal growth Houghton Mifflin ideas income tax increased output increased production individual industry inequality inflation insecurity interest investment J. M. Keynes Keynes labor force less liberal Malthus marginal Marx matter measures ment modern monetary policy nomic political poor poverty preoccupation prestige private production problem public services reason reduce regarded remains result Ricardo rich social balance Social Darwinism Social Darwinists spending stability supply survival tendency things thought tion unem unemployment United urgency wages want creation wealth workers