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The Affluent Society

by John Kenneth Galbraith

Private affluence and public priorities

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Private affluence and public priorities

John Kenneth Galbraith’s examination of postwar American economics sets private wealth alongside public poverty, asking how a society’s economic security should be understood. The book challenges the emphasis on production as a measure of prosperity and considers how investment in public wealth might address economic inequity. Its central questions connect the distribution of resources with the condition of shared institutions, giving the discussion a scope beyond individual income. First published in 1958, it presents an economic argument rooted in its own historical moment about poverty, affluence, and public priorities.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in postwar American economic thought.
  • Readers exploring economic inequality and the meaning of prosperity.
  • Readers seeking arguments about public investment and economic policy.

Themes

Economic inequalityPrivate wealth and public resourcesPoverty and prosperityPublic investment

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

John Kenneth Galbraith's classic investigation of private wealth and public poverty in postwar America.

With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith gets at the heart of what economic security means in The Affluent Society.

Warning against individual and societal complacence about economic inequity, he offers an economic model for investing in public wealth that challenges "conventional wisdom" (a phrase he coined that has since entered our vernacular) about the long-term value of a production-based economy and the true nature of poverty. Both politically divisive and remarkably prescient, The Affluent Society is as relevant today on the question of wealth in America as it was in 1958.
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