Publius on the “last gentleman of the American left”;
Galbraith’s thesis in The Affluent Society was essentially a slick and updated presentation of Veblen’s attack on capitalism. More deeply it was a repetition of the New Testament’s contempt for wealth and call to seek redemption by giving one’s ill gotten gains to the poor. A Francis of Assisi who had tenure at Harvard and skied every year at Gstadd with his old pal William F. Buckley. It should be kept in mind that when Galbraith declared the American middle and upper classes were rich enough, and that their surplus wealth should be handed over to the “poor,” the American standard of living was about one-third of what it is today. In his seven decade career in public policy it seems quite literally never to have occurred to Galbraith that the big government policies he did so much to prompt, and was so talented at implementing, might perpetuate poverty rather than alleviate it.