The Pragmatism of John Kenneth Galbraith

James K. Galbraith ()
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James K. Galbraith: Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin

Acta Oeconomica, 2019, vol. 69, issue supplement1, 195-213

Abstract: For this essay, to honor Professor Kolodko, I take up the case of an older pragmatist whose circumstances and achievements I knew well – that of my father, John Kenneth Galbraith. While I cannot do full justice in this space to the life and work of 97 years, what I hope to show is how the application of my father’s background and experience in a world of mundane knowledge and urgent problems led to his development of a compelling critique of classical and neoclassical economics, and to his presentation of a world-view that stood, for a time, as the leading vision of industrial capitalism in the modern age. That this vision was swept aside, and largely dismissed or ignored, by the professional academic economists is, under the circumstances, merely a continuing testimony to its merit, and to the threat it poses to a comfortable, but wholly impractical, world-view.

Keywords: Galbraith; pragmatism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 A31 B25 B31 B52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: His most recent books are Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe and Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know.
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