John Kenneth Galbraith

Life

• Born: October 15, 1908, in Iona Station, Ontario, Canada
• Education:
• BS in Agriculture from Ontario Agricultural College (1931)
• PhD in Agricultural Economics from UC Berkeley (1934)
• Career Highlights:
• Harvard professor (1934-1975)
• US Ambassador to India (1961-1963)
• Advisor to multiple US presidents including FDR, JFK, and LBJ
• Death: April 29, 2006, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

People Who Influenced Their Thought

• John Maynard Keynes: Galbraith became the leading American interpreter of Keynesian economics
• Thorstein Veblen: Inspired Galbraith's institutional economics approach
• Joseph Schumpeter: Influenced his views on capitalism's evolution

Main Ideas and Publications

• American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (1952): Introduced theory of countervailing market forces
• The Affluent Society (1958): Critiqued postwar US economic priorities
• The New Industrial State (1967): Analyzed corporate dominance of modern economies
• Economics and the Public Purpose (1973): Proposed democratic socialism alternative

Controversies

• Technostructure Theory: Critics argued he overstated corporate planning capabilities
• Policy Influence: Conservatives attacked his Keynesian advocacy as promoting big government
• Academic Reception: Mainstream economists often dismissed his work as "popular" rather than rigorous

Key People Influenced

• Paul Krugman: Carried forward Galbraith's liberal economic tradition
• Robert Reich: Applied Galbraithian analysis to modern inequality
• Joseph Stiglitz: Extended critiques of conventional economics

Legacy

Galbraith redefined political economy for the 20th century, blending institutional analysis with witty critiques of conventional wisdom and wealth inequality.