J.K. Galbraith and the Liberal Society

 

 

This post is based on article which was published on Liberal Democrat Voice 15^th May and subsequent comments:

https://www.libdemvoice.org/j-k-galbraith-and-the-liberal-society-75215.html

 

A friend who hoards his newspapers for years has just passed on to me an interview by Roy Hattersley with J K Galbraith in the latter’s 90^th  year (1998)

The article is headlined “Sage of the Century”* and there is no doubt that, after Keynes’s  death, Galbraith  was the pre-eminent economist of the second half twentieth century.  He got most things right (including opposition to the Vietnam War) and many of the issues raised in the interview are as relevant today as they were a quarter of a century ago. Indeed, having ignored his views provides a good explanation as to why we are now in our present dire predicament.

The following quotes (in italics) are from the article;

To The Affluent Society we owe the prediction of “private affluence and public squalor.” Which we can see all around us, in spades after the Margaret Thatcher inspired dominance of the inadequately regulated market since 1979.

Galbraith’s first success was his analysis of “The Great Crash” of 1929.  In 1998 he predicted: “A slump will surely happen again, sooner or later. . .they are a normal feature of the market.” 

Well, it did happen again, in 2008, and we are still paying for the consequences.  Keynes was in favour of “animal spirits,”  but I think he had in mind investors in the “real economy” rather than manipulators of the financial markets, allowed to over-reach themselves by Mrs Thatcher’s Big Bang.

“The poor are politically emasculated.  They don’t vote so they don’t have a strong expression in Congress or the White House.” 

Or in Parliament or 10 Downing Street.  ID cards are hardly likely to encourage them.  PR to make voting more meaningful might.  This is not just a matter of justice, ethics or morality (or, as the Tories might try to ridicule it - “wokeness.”) In the Culture of Contentment [Galbraith] predicted that “unless the poor’s needs were met. . . the ghettos would explode.”

 In The Good Society Galbraith wrote that: ” the basic need  is to accept the principle  that the more equitable distribution of income must be a fundamental tenet  of modern public policy and to this end progressive taxation is central.”  Yet as we approach an election the Tories will tempt us with further tax cuts and Labour dare not remonstrate. Dare the Liberal Democrats?

 “Legal equality . . .is essential in a liberal democracy.  But freedom needs to be more than that.  There are social freedoms that depend on purchasing power.  Thus freedom in sum is increased by redistribution.  Equality and freedom go hand in hand.”

Not only that, but the likes of Wilkinson and Pickett (The Spirit Level, Penguin 2009, 2010) and umpteen others have demonstrated that more equal societies enjoy better levels of mental and physical health, less crime and are happier.

Finally, the article introduces “the malign influence of the military establishment,” to which one might add, the armaments industry. “They have a special appeal, the traditional identification with patriotic causes even when there is no perceptible enemy.”

And if there is, the likes of Rishi Sunak don’t hesitate to grasp the straw.

Unfortunately the self- evident and tried and tested truths which Galbraith promulgated are drowned out in our media and political debate by the rich and powerful, who pretend  that if they and their mates are unrestricted by regulations to protect we lesser mortals from chancers and cheats then the prosperity unleashed (it isn’t) will not only benefit them (it does, by their grabbing a bigger share of less)) but will “trickle down “ to raise “all boats” just as the rising tide doesn’t.  (It doesn’t)

We “progressives” have a much better and far more truthful story to tell. We should not be afraid to tell it.