Stuck on Galbraith

Tech Cetral Station ^ | 09 Feb 2006 | By Arnold Kling

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>With its statist philosophy and lack of appreciation for entrepreneurs, today's Left is still very much stuck on Galbraith.

Which is just as bad as being stuck on stupid. To the extent to which a philosophical thinker can actually do damage, JK Galbraith truly has.

[Borges]

He's still alive too. 97 years old.

[Borges]

[ozzymandus]

The pompous old fart had a series on PBS back in the day. It was interesting and well-produced, but it was pure leftist BS.

[arthurus]

they appear to be a long way from being able to acknowledge the role that entrepreneurial activity

It seems that DeLong acknowleges the entrepreneur and entreneurial effects but resents them. Liberals hate entrepreneurs because they take control of reconomic relations among people away from the liberals who are government and academic peple who see their role as natural rulers and the only rational organizers of anything. They are the Wise Men without whom mens' lives must be nasty, brutish and not nice.

[Gordongekko909]

Lt. General Honore says: "Mr. Galbraith, you are stuck on stupid."

[GoforBroke]

ping

[untenured]

Excellent post. There is some discussion of entrepeneurship in mainstream economics, and one guy I had at grad school in UCLA (Joseph Ostroy) was reworking standard general-equilibrium theory to take account of what he called competition via "market making" in contrast to via "market taking." (I thought it was clever, but it appears not to have caught on.) But once upon a time giants like Schumpeter and Hayek made entrepreneurs a focal point of microeconomic analysis.

[.cnI redruM]

No wonder I had to fight so hard to stay conscious in Intermediate Macro. It was a concerted effort to prove that individuals could never move the needle once there was a large enough bulk.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>They are the Wise Men without whom mens' lives must be nasty, brutish and not nice.

What would Sir Galahad ever amount to without any peasants to rescue?

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

He's still alive too. 97 years old.

I saw him walking around Harvard Square about 10 years ago. Another time I saw him in the local Chinese restaurant. He looked close to dead then.

[liberty2004]

He's still alive too. 97 years old.

wow, I didn't know that. I would love to tell him that his entire view of economics IS wrong and that his beliefs caused untold misery for so many for so long. He is a despicable man for not acknowledging his ideas were SO wrong. His beliefs are a cancer on prosperity.

[Borges]

In Capitalism, Man exploits Man. In Communism it's the other way around.

- J. K. Galbraith.

[driftless]

Galbraith is like a great many old liberals. They are come off as viscerally very intelligent, charming, well-informed about world and scientific events. But their basic belief about how to run a society is basically a gigantic crock of you-know-what. In short they want to run society. They do not realize that economics should not be run...certainly not by incompetent leftist meddlers like Galbraith.

Many people, well okay liberals, are easily fooled by these charming erudite people. They credulously suck in all the "wisdom" of these charlatans. Bland persons like Milton Friedman do not appeal to them.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>In short they want to run society. They do not realize that economics should not be run.

That's why liberals hate neo-classical economic theory.

[Erasmus]

"With the rise of the modern corporation, the emergence of the organization required by modern technology and planning and the divorce of the owner of capital from control of the enterprise, the entrepreneur no longer exists in the mature industrial enterprise." -- John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, chapter vi

Two points, if I may.

First, our Tech Central author interprets JKG as approving of the state of affairs in which the entrepeneur is no longer found in "the mature industrial enterprise." But this statement has more than a grain of truth in it, regardless of JKG's endorsement. From my experience, I think it is true, and also that it represents a major problem for the modern corporation.

Second, JKG comments on the "divorce of the owner of capital from control of the enterprise." I think he's right here, although possibly for the wrong reasons.

For decades, I've watched corporate management co-opt the interest of the stockholders, who are supposed to be represented by the boards of directors; all to often, the boards and the managements are one cozy little club, and most of the stockholders are never the wiser.

Once in a while, as we've seen recently with Enron, Tyco, and Global Crossing, there's a big blowup that dramatizes the problem. So I think this is another structural problem that faces the modern corporation.

[Erasmus]

But once upon a time giants like Schumpeter and Hayek made entrepreneurs a focal point of microeconomic analysis.

And microeconomics provides an incomparable paradigm for the study of business in general, and the corporation in particular.

[robowombat]

"academic people who see their role as natural rulers and the only rational organizers of anything."

I remember talking to an Asst prof of Polysci, I think. He in so many words said the same thing. Then he said 'Then one day I started to think about the level of competence displayed at the department faculty meetings and I realized academicians couldn't organize a two car funeral procession without establishing a series of committees to study the personnel, environmental, and social issues inherent in such an event." With a complete poker face he concluded with'In other words we in academia aren't competent to make a peanut butter sandwich let alone rule anything."

[muir_redwoods]

Galbraith is an absolute and total moron who could't find his own ass with both hands and a two-day head start. The fact that anyone ever listened to him on any topic is astounding. He hasn't the brains to be left in charge of a burned match.

In my humble opinion....

[Calvin Locke]

One of the best Firing Line debates was around 1982-83, on something like "Reagan's Economic Initiatives".

It was held at Harvard, and had Galbraith, some CCNY prof, Laffer, the editor of Barron's, and one other.
The moderator was the guy that recently got fired as the editorial editor of the LAT.

Any way, Galbraith, in his summary at the end of the debate, started ranting about nuclear weapons. I don't know if he
just lost it, or was deliberately trying to obscure his and his cohorts' incredibly bad job they did at opposing what
Reagan was proposing to do.