1973: The Year John Kenneth Galbraith Made Socialism Mainstream

I started writing about economic issues in 1971, first inReason thenNational Review. One of my most serious early articles –­and certainly the most unread–­ was a 2800-word critique of John Kenneth Galbraith inThe Intercollegiate Review, posing as a book review with the mildly disrespectful title “Irrelevant Anachronism. ”  Ken Galbraith and I met years later, when he was invited to comment about my presentation at a1987 debate at Harvard [recorded by C-Span] about “The Disappearing Middle Class” on a panel with Lester Thurow, Barry Bluestone and Frank Levy.  In Paul Krugman ’s ill-tempered 1994 book,Peddling Prosperity [which I reviewed as“Peddling Pomposity”], he called Galbraith “the first celebrity economist,” adding that “he has never been taken seriously by his academic colleagues, who regard him as more of a media personality.”Today, Krugman is a leading celebrity economist and media personality. But he never approached the pop chart supremacy and political clout that Galbraith once had. Galbraith was, for example, the uncontested bandleader behind the deafening drumbeat for Nixon ’s price controls in August 15, 1971.My September 24, 1971 cover story forNational Review,“The Case Against Wage and Price Controls” began by dismembering the arguments behind Galbraith ’s briefly victorious argument that, “The seemingly obvious remedy for the wage-price spiral is to regulate prices and wages by public authority” [fromThe New Indust...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs