Clive Crook buries Galbraith

National Journal columnist gives J. K. Galbraith all the respect he deserves. That is, nearly none.

Comments

[spencer]

I quit reading the article when in his opening remarks he implied that Keynes was not in favor of free markets. When someone starts out with such incorrect comments why should you bother with the rest.

[Jake]

"On India, which he knew well (he served as ambassador there during the Kennedy administration), Galbraith thought its central-planning regime, modeled on the Soviet Union's, needed to be more intelligently managed rather than instantly abandoned."

The man who ran the Indian economy during its central planning days (as advised by Galbraith) said this at his retirement. He was sorry that he was so wrong about central planning and that he regretted the poverty he brought to hundreds of millions of Indians.

I wonder If Galbraith felt the same guilt for bringing poverty and despair to so many people.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

The worst thing about Galbraith was that he allowed people who knew nothing about economics to talk about it as though they did by parroting his simple-minded aphorisms.

[cactus]

Thank goodness having people who know nothing about economics making economic decisions is a thing of the past... http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/17/gotcha

[kyle8]

Well, cactus, having the administration and the congress quibbling about whether the wages are keeping up with inflation is a pretty different thing than a command economy.
We can have higher or lower taxes, and less, or more regulations, but we, thank god, do not have an army of bureaucrats dictating every
industrial decision.