John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006)

John Kenneth Galbraith is a Canadian-born American economist who is perhaps the most widely read economist in the world. He taught at Harvard from 1934-1939 and then again from 1949-1975. An adviser to President John F. Kennedy, he served from 1961 to 1963 as U.S. ambassador to India. His style and wit in writing and his frequent media appearances have contributed greatly to his fame as an economist. Galbraith believes that it is not sufficient for government to manage the level of effective demand; government must manage the market itself. Galbraith stated in American Capitalism (1952) that the market is far from competitive, and governments and labor unions must serve as "countervailing power." He believes that ultimately "producer sovereignty" takes the place of consumer sovereignty and the producer - not the consumer - becomes ruler of the marketplace. (Bowker Author Biography) John Kenneth Galbraith, born in 1908, is the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University and a past president of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Economic Association. He is the author of thirty-one books spanning five decades. He has received honorary degrees from, among others, Harvard University, Oxford University, the University of Paris, the University of Toronto, and Moscow State University. He is Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur in France, and in 1997 he was inducted into the Order of Canada. In 2000, at a White House ceremony, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Publisher Provided) — biography from The Great Crash 1929… (more)