The Culture of Contentment by John Kenneth Galbraith

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith [Galbraith, John Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780691171654
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2017-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

THE ECONOMIC ACCOMMODATION, II

As has been noted in the last chapter, reputable or, as it is often called, mainstream economics has for some centuries given grace and acceptability to convenient belief—to what the socially and economically favored most wish or need to have believed. This economics, to repeat, is wholly reputable; it permeates and even dominates professional discussion and writing, the textbooks and classroom instruction.

This is especially true of one approved element of larger economic policy, namely, monetary policy. It has major scholarly standing as a design for preventing or mitigating inflation and recession or depression, its questionable effectiveness, especially against a diminished flow of demand and recession, notwithstanding. That it is a way of guiding action away from the discomforts of tax and expenditure policy, and also from a wage and price policy; that it rewards a large and financially influential rentier class; and certainly that it is not economically and socially neutral go unmentioned.

In contrast, there are lines of economic thought and persuasion important to contentment that do not enjoy serious scholarly respect. They have about them an aspect of contrivance—of being concocted after the fact to justify the particular interest or need that they serve. This could be wrong and even unfair; nearly all authors, whatever their service to special interest, however apparent the pecuniary rewards and the applause, are able with slight personal effort to find scholarly virtue and integrity in their own asserted views. So it may be here.

To serve contentment, there were and are three basic requirements. One is the need to defend the general limitation on government as regards the economy; there must be a doctrine that offers a feasible presumption against government intervention. The broad commitment to laissez faire has been sufficiently noted. So also the supporting positions of Ricardo, Malthus and Herbert Spencer. But these names are not widely known, and, in the case of Malthus and Spencer, there is a somewhat adverse connotation; they are not authorities to be readily or wisely cited. A completely reputable and compelling name is needed.

The second, more specific need is to find social justification for the untrammeled, uninhibited pursuit and possession of wealth. This cannot rest in the enjoyment of wealth by the wealthy, undoubted as that enjoyment may be. There is need for demonstration that the pursuit of wealth or even less spectacular well-being serves a serious, even grave social purpose.

Of equal importance here is the need for a justification that does not open an abyss between those who are rich and those who are merely comfortable; otherwise there could be a damaging conflict within the culture of contentment. The case for the rich must seem benign—perhaps essential—to the only comfortably affluent.

The third need is to justify a reduced sense of public responsibility for the poor. Those so situated, the members of the functional and socially immobilized underclass, must, in some very real way, be seen as the architects of their own fate. If not, they could be, however marginally, on the conscience of the comfortable.

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