The world economy since the wars: a personal view

Whatever your politics, it's hard to deny that the liberal side of the argument has easily the most stylish advocate in Galbraith. His incomparable wit, irony and lucidity were as sharp as ever at age 85, and the spurts of mockery, even when they're a bit unfair e.g. 'the military mind, or what is commonly so denoted' are memorable in the extreme. The problem with economics is that many, probably most, of us do not understand it well enough to make responsible political judgments as citizens and electors.The temptation to equate our prejudices with great and prevalent truth is strong, and discussion is unduly dominated by those Galbraith terms 'the stridently vocal and pathologically ignorant'. He addresses this shortfall with a chronological commentary on world economic history starting with the disastrous reparations policy of 1919 and the facile specious reasoning that led to it, stating memorably that the second world war was really the last act of the first, the direct consequence of Versailles. His purpose is to argue a point of view, but to argue it from independent reasoning not from what he calls 'theological' belief. He is firmly convinced of the economic benefit, and often the outright necessity, of public intervention in a market system that does not operate in the way its brighter-eyed enthusiasts like to believe. I can't say he persuades me of this because I was persuaded of it to start with, but he assembles the case-history and organises the reasoning. The book was finished in 1993 and 10 years later the doctrine that the affluent need the economic incentive of more money and the poor need the economic incentive of less is once again official theology. I for one couldn't conduct a dispute over this with Professor Friedman or Professor Minford, but I am glad to have the backing, from someone who can, for my personal mindset that not only is this view without proper foundation but that attempts to cloak it with moralism are the most odious self-serving humbug.