The Good Society: The Humane Agenda

184 Pages·1996·0.52 MB·English

by  John Kenneth Galbraith

title: The Good Society : The Humane Agenda
author: Galbraith, John Kenneth.
publisher: Houghton-Mifflin Trade and Reference
isbn10 | asin:
print isbn13: 9780395713280
ebook isbn13: 9780585177373
language: English
Welfare economics, Income distribution,
subject Social justice, Consumption (Economics) ,
Individualism.
publication date: 1996
lcc: HB846.G35 1996eb
ddc: 330.12/6
Welfare economics, Income distribution,
subject: Social justice, Consumption (Economics) ,
Individualism.
Page i
The Good Society
Page ii
BOOKS BY JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
American Capitalism:
The Concept of Countervailing Power
A Theory of Price Control
The Great Crash, 1929
The Affluent Society
The Scotch
The New Industrial State
The Triumph
Indian Painting
(with Mohinder Singh Rondhawa)
Ambassador's Journal
Economics and the Public Purpose
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went
Annals of an Abiding Liberal
A Life in Our Times
The Anatomy of Power
A View from the Stands
Economics in Perspective:
A Critical History
A Tenured Professor
The Culture of Contentment
A Journey Through Economic Time:
A Firsthand View
The Good Society:
The Humane Agenda
Page iii
The Good Society
The Humane Agenda
John Kenneth Galbraith
Page iv
Copyright © 1996 by John Kenneth Galbraith
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this
book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park
Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
For information about this and other Houghton Mifflin trade and
reference books and multimedia products, visit The Bookstore at
Houghton Mifflin on the World Wide Web at
http://www.hmco.com/trade/.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Galbraith, John Kenneth, date.
The good society: the humane dimension/ John
Kenneth Galbraith
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-395-71328-5
1. Welfare economics. 2. Income distribution. 3. Social
justice. 4. Consumption (Economics) 5. Individualism.
I. Title
HB846.G35 1996 96-983
330.12'6 dc20 CIP
Printed in the United States of America
Book design by Robert Overholtzer
QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Page v
Acknowledgments
My first word of thanks goes to the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche
(the biyearly meeting of the German Evangelical Church), which in
the early summer of 1993 gathered the many thousands in Munich and
asked me to speak on the good society. This started a current of
thought and effort that I then pursued, as other obligations allowed,
for the next two years, strengthened, as I later tell, by recent political
developments and deviance in the United States and elsewhere.
The Good Society has been used as a title on various works before,
and with no slight popular effect on a treatise by Walter Lippmann in
1937. There was no search for imitative distinction here. The Good
Society merely expresses with the greatest clarity my intention in this
exercise.
As ever, I thank my Harvard colleagues with whom I have discussed
these matters and my son James Galbraith, professor at the University
of Texas, who has given me access to his excellent computer bank.
Andrea Williams, my friend and collaborator for thirty-seven years,
has, as before, brought to bear her editorial skills, her good humor
Page vi
and a certain patient persistence developed over the decades so that
my English prose does not arouse the concern or the compassion of
my critics. To Andrea, truly my thanks. Brooke Palmer, my very
effective administrative assistant, has with tact and skill fended off or
absorbed competing claims on my time, making it possible for me to
write and, I trust, to think. I have a special word for my publisher,
Houghton Mifflin Company, with whom I have also had a friendly
association for almost half a century. Rarely have author and publisher
combined so agreeably for so long.
Finally, and certainly not least, Catherine Atwater Galbraith has, as so
often, been my beloved wholly tolerant supporter in the writing of this
book. It was fitting that my original inspiration should have occurred
in Munich for it was there as a graduate student that she had a
significant part of her own scholarly career. Ever since a sparkling day
in the autumn of 1937, she has watched over all my efforts with
patience, encouragement and loving tolerance. To Kitty especially, my
thanks and my love.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
NOVEMBER 1995
Page vii
Contents
1. The Good Society 1
2. The Wider Screen 6
3. The Age of Practical Judgment 14
4. The Social Foundation 23
5. The Good Economy 33
6. Inflation 43
7. The Deficit 50
8. The Distribution of Income and Power 59
9. The Decisive Role of Education 68
10. Regulation: The Basic Principles 75
11. The Environment 82
12. Migration 89
13. The Autonomous Military Power 97
14. The Bureaucratic Syndrome 104
15. Foreign Policy: The Economic and Social Dimension 110
16. The Poor of the Planet I: The Shaping History 121
17. The Poor of the Planet II: What the Good Society 130
Must Do
18. The Political Context 138