University Times

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith came to Pittsburgh March 19 to preach the gospel of the socially concerned. Unbowed, unforgiving, and unrepentant in the face of today's resurgent conservatism, Galbraith outlined the basic tenets of liberalism, advocating for them with practiced insight to the state of his creed today.

Galbraith's lecture, "Liberalism in America's Political Future," was part of the University Honors College's American Experience Distinguished Lecture Series.

Galbraith, 89, Harvard's Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus, entered American public life in the time of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. He was chief of the World War II-era Office of Price Control while still in his 30s and at the end of the war directed the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, for which he was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1946. He worked for Henry Luce at Fortune Magazine and was an adviser to the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy, who later named him ambassador to India. He is the author of numerous books, perhaps best known for his classic, "The Affluent Society." To the crowd packed into David Lawrence Hall auditorium, Galbraith laid out an agenda for people like him, people who he said go by many names: liberals in America, Labor in Britain, socialists in Europe, but whom he calls the "socially concerned." He intertwined that agenda with a critique of the market system economy, which, according to Galbraith, only survives its own tendency to inhumane excess thanks to the work of the "socially concerned." "Capitalism in its original form was an insufferably cruel thing which produced militant criticism and opposition," said Galbraith, noting that only with liberal tools such as trade unions, protections for workers' health and rights, public health care, housing for the poor, pensions for the old, and compensation for the unemployed did capitalism become a viable economic system in a human society. "Let us not be reticent. We the socially concerned are the custodians of the political tradition and action that saved capitalism from itself." As a C-Span camera rolled, Galbraith made his case for a responsible, yet humane, social policy.

On the privatization trend: "In recent years there has been a curb of thought, or what is so described, which holds that all possible economic activity should now be returned to the market. The market system having been accepted, it must now be universal. Privatization has now become a public thing. This, needless to say, we reject. The question of private versus the government role in modern life is not to be decided in abstract theoretical problems. The decision depends on the merits of the particular case. Conservatives, people on the right, need to be warned, as we also warn ourselves, that ideology can be a heavy blanket over thought. Thought must guide action. The continuing flaws, inequities, and cruelties of the market system make it an unreliable provider of some services." On the stock market boom: "We are presently witnessing a stock market boom for which we may be reasonably sure there will be an eventual day of reckoning," On the Federal Reserve's efforts to rein in the economy: "We must not be in fear of a strong productive economic performance, but we must have well in mind the danger of excess. In good times, the public budget, taxes and expenditures must be a restraining force. So also, action against mergers and acquisitions and other manifestations of adverse, sometimes insane, corporate behavior. Monetary restraint, hiring constraints may be in order, a matter in which conservatives are more than adequately agreeable. I will not comment further on my old friend Alan Greenspan." "We cannot be casual about inflation. As necessary, it must be restrained … What we do not accept is that an all-pervasive fear of inflation should arrest all economic progress." On the balanced budget: "We accept the need for fiscal responsibility. This does not, however, mean an annually balanced budget. If I may be allowed a word on our country in particular, the balanced budget has, at the moment, become a major weapon in a larger attack on the poor. Borrowing for enhanced future return is just as legitimate for government as it is for corporations and individuals. The valid test is that increased debt should be in keeping with increased ability to pay. And that, indeed, is our present situation." On unemployment: "The social loss in human distress of unemployment must be directly addressed. This means opportunity for alternative public employment in recession or depression. The social waste of idleness cannot be accepted." On income distribution: "The market system distributes income in a highly unequal fashion, a matter on which the U.S., it is now recognized, has a perverse world leadership. Our distribution of income is more unequal than that of any other major industrial country. Strong and effective trade organizations, a humane minimum wage, social security, [and] good medical care are all part of the answer to the unequal distribution of income. So also a progressive income tax. On this, the socially concerned agree." On taxes: "Few exercises in social argument are so obviously in defense of financial self-interest as those put forward by the rich against their taxes. It always boils down to the slightly improbable case that the rich are not working as hard as they should because they have too little income, and the poor are not working as hard as they should because they have too much. Nothing so contributes to energy and initiative in the modern economy as the struggle by the affluent to maintain their after-tax income." On education: "High professional competence, adequately generous financing, and yes, wise, effective discipline must make and characterize the education that is available to all. The justification is not alone [that] a well-educated labor force enhances economic productivity, which is the respectable present case. It is, rather, that education enhances, enriches, and enlarges the enjoyment of life. That is the true justification." On welfare: "Let us recognize that in any welfare system there will be some abuse. Some people will not work. Let us recognize that in any university with tenure there are some people who discover that leisure is a wonderful thing. We don't condemn universities because this is true. Let us not condemn the poor because some also abuse the system." In concluding his talk, Galbraith linked the need for compassionate social policies to the growth of modern urban society. He surveyed the failure of the last conservative Congress to achieve much of its agenda and pronounced that failure inevitable in light of a trend toward further and continuing urbanization. "Those who would reverse social action or even allow it to stagnate to the present are not in conflict with the socially concerned. They are in conflict with the great force of history," he said. "We [the socially concerned] are in line with history. It is our support. For that we should be both grateful and energetic."

–Fred Solomon

(Fred Solomon is project editor in the Department of University Relations.)