John Kenneth Galbraith, Revisited

Clive Crook:

The respect and even reverence that the modern American Left has accorded to [John Kenneth] Galbraith -- regarding him not just as a brilliantly effective writer, which he was, but also as a deep thinker about capitalism and society, which he was not -- is telling. It reflects a tenacious reluctance to concede the ethical and material superiority of the capitalist system. For an intelligent and pragmatic liberal (in the American sense of that word) this surely ought to be a minimal, painless concession, barely any concession at all. Obviously, a radical, ambitious, and productive agenda of social and economic reforms could still be spread out before voters -- reforms addressed to genuine failures of the market (which are numerous) and to legitimate egalitarian purposes of many kinds. But for some reason that does not quite satisfy.

Much of the Left still longs to sneer at the very idea of capitalism, especially at the claim that it has real ethical foundations (all the more so, in comparison with the attempted alternatives). There is still a wish to regard the whole thing as a scam: gulled and witless consumers; scheming and rapacious businesses; phony markets and bogus "competition"; politicians, media hacks, and other assorted apologists for "the system," all cozily in the pockets of the people in charge. It is a comprehensively false diagnosis. From a narrower political point of view, it is also, most likely, a self-defeating sentiment, because in America (though not in Europe) this mind-set makes it harder to win elections, not easier.

Galbraith dignified that self-defeating sentiment, dressed it in professorial robes, and expressed it with wonderful wit and elegance. He did his followers, who loved him for it, no favors.