John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, OC (properly /ɡælˈbreɪθ/ gal-BRAYTH, but commonly /ˈɡælbreɪθ/ GAL-brayth; 15 October 1908 – 29 April 2006), was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian, an institutionalist, and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s and he filled the role of public intellectual from the 1950s to the 1970s on matters of economics.
Galbraith was a prolific author who produced four dozen books and over a thousand articles on various subjects. Among his most famous works was a popular trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967). He taught at Harvard University for many years. Galbraith was active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson; he served as United States Ambassador to India under Kennedy. Due to his prodigious literary output he was arguably the best known economist in the world during his lifetime and was one of a select few people to be awarded the Medal of Freedom, in 1946, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2000, for services to economics. The government of France made him a Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur.
Read more about John Kenneth Galbraith: Postwar, Works, Honors
Famous quotes containing the words kenneth galbraith, john, kenneth and/or galbraith:
“There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon—but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx—the world went around, it didn’t stop for a second. It’s sad but true. John Kennedy, right?”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)