paul phillips wrote:
... Looking at Ron Stanfield's comments on "Galbraith's contribution
to political economy" in the Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, he writes: "A persistent theme of Galbraith's work has been the need to view the economy as an institutionalized system of power. ..."<
clearly, the institutionalized system of power is crucial, but there are other schools (e.g., Marxism, some other institutionalists) that emphasize its role.
Stanfield goes on to note two other contributions of Galbraith's to
PE, the 'dual economy' ... He also, I would suggest, predates the post-Keynesians in placing the macro determination above the micro level which contradicts the neoclassical/neoliberal model and, I would suggest, explains the extreme hostility of the neoclassical clan to his ideas and probably why he never received a Nobel nomination despite his obvously superior contribution to late 20th century economics. < if JKG indeed invented the idea of the "dual economy," he deserves tremendous amounts of credit. Where was it presented? in ECONOMICS AND THE PUBLIC PURPOSE? This was in response to the criticism of THE NEW INDUSTRIAL STATE, which emphasized only the primary sector. The reasons why he didn't win the bogus "Nobel" prize is because (1) he wasn't a neoclassical, believing in markets über alles and equilibrium as the natural state; (2) he didn't use mathematics; and (3) he wrote well.
Part of his appreciation for the macro dimension (and I would suspect
is part of the reason for the orthodox hostility) was his appreciation for the importance of the public sphere which tanscended individual tastes and propensities and rely on collective goods and values. I recently visited New York (and made my debut performance at Carnegie Hall 8-) ) and was quite shocked at the state of neglect of the city's roads and infrastructure. This , of course, was one of Galbraith's themes though I never understood how his message that the satisfaction of individual wants could only be met by the provision of public goods could be completely ignored. We now see that issue arising again with single-payer medical insurance but, still, against the denial of the economic elite in the US despite the cries of dispair from the auto and airline industry. < the reason why he was ignored is that the political trend for the last 50 years in the US (if not longer) has been for "free enterprise."
Finally, in this note, I would comment on the note in many of the
newspaper reports on JDG's death that he left behind him no school or group of disciples. I am not sure that is entirely true. Galbraith was in the tradition of the institutionalists dating back to Veblen and Commons (neither of which left an individual school named after them) but rather an institutionalist 'tradition', a mode of analysis, an appreciation for what Hodgson has called historical (and institutional) specificity. Samuelson does not have a school named after him -- he was part of the neoclassical tradition -- nor does even Friedman who is associated with the now largely discredited monetarist school. I would argue that Galbraith was the greatest of the modern insitutionalists dating back to Veblen, Commons and Mitchell and that we await the emergence of a new intellectual innovator in the school with insight into both the workings of the economic system and a profound understanding of the institutional specificities of our times. < Friedman has a whole bunch of disciples, i.e., the whole Chicago school and more broadly, neo-liberalism. Jim Devine
