"Galbraith propounded no such easily summarized doctrine. The closest we can get is: "the world is complicated, and both right-wing ideology and the conventional wisdom that is this age's self-image are terribly wrong." He offered critiques that required you to read and understand old theories, not new theories that allowed you to dismiss everything prior as irrelevant. The result? Nearly all economists today are Paul Samuelson's children. Many are Keynes' children. Friedman, Robert Lucas, Robert Solow, and James Tobin all have plenty of descendants. But there are few Galbraithians on the ground. Would economics as a discipline be stronger if the 50-year-old and 30-year-old economists had a better appreciation of Galbraith? Almost surely. Will the winds of economic fashion shift and cause economists to appreciate Galbraith once again? For that to happen, an astute young economist would have to devote himself to "mathing up" chapters of The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State and publishing them in journals—not a likely prospect in today's risk-adverse academic environment."
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Academics from the United StatesAcademics from CanadaEconomists from CanadaUnited States Ambassadors to IndiaEconomists from the United States
Original Language: English
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Sources
J. Bradford DeLong, “Sisyphus as Social Democrat”, Foreign Affairs (May/June 2005)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith
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John Kenneth Galbraith
1908 – 2006
kanadisch-amerikanischer Ă–konom
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