Economics and the Public Purpose (1973)

This was a strange reading experience. A very dated analysis (not therefore invalid) written from the time of my childhood (1960s) and teenage years (1970s), the time of Richard Nixon and just before (or at) the energy crisis. Women were largely presumed to be stay at home. The protests against the Vietnam War were contemporary.

Galbraith proposes that what he calls the neoclassical analysis of the economy with its focus on the market which is controlled by consumer demand and cost of production is hopelessly inadequate. This analysis ignores the power of very large corporations to control demand and price through planning. Galbraith sees two economic systems working side by side: the planning system (large corporations) and the normal (from neoclassical point of view) market system. The government is more easily melded with the planning system to the advantage of the planning system and the market is left to its own devices. This results in an abundance of relatively lesser needed products where the market supplies an inadequate supply of other products more useful to the public.

Beyond this I dare not go, but I am not sure I can articulate accurately. ( )