The Affluent Society is a witty, graceful and devastating attack on some of our most cherished economic myths.
As relevant today as when it was first published over forty years ago Galbraith’s classic text on the ‘economics of abundance’ lays bare the hazards of individual and social complacency about economic inequality. Why worship work and productivity if many of the goods we produce are superfluous – artificial ‘needs’ created by high-pressure advertising?
Why begrudge expenditure on vital public works while ignoring waste and extravagance in the private sector of the economy? Classical economics was born in a harsh world of mass poverty and has left us with a set of preconceptions ill-adapted to the realities of our own richer age.
Is Enough Enough?
If you feel troubled by society’s fixation on producing more and more stuff regardless of whether we need it, then The Affluent Society may offer some comfort. If you also labour in a dull job that...
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