The Economist as Liberal Thinker

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — At a time when the word “liberal” is sometimes referred to as “the L word,” a University of Arkansas political scientist has published a study of one of the 20^th century’s preeminent liberals, John Kenneth Galbraith. Conrad P. Waligorski places Galbraith’s ideas within the context of liberal theory “during a crucial time in its development” and addresses important issues of American political and economic policy.

John Kenneth Galbraith: The Economist as Political Theorist begins with a discussion of the common criticisms that liberalism is mushy and superficial. Rather, Waligorski wrote, liberalism is “multifaceted, diverse, and complicated. What it means and where it applies remain part of our continuing philosophical and public debate. For much of the twentieth century, John Kenneth Galbraith (born 1908) actively engaged in this debate.”

During a long and productive life, Galbraith interrupted his academic career to hold a variety of government posts during World War II and to serve as an editor of Fortune magazine from 1943 to 1948. He was a key advisor to President John F. Kennedy and served as ambassador to India from 1961 to 1963. As a Harvard professor of economics, he wrote several popular works, including The Affluent Society in 1958. Waligorski noted Galbraith’s influence on popular thinking and public policy. Galbraith introduced concepts such as conventional wisdom and affluent society that have framed the way many people see the world.

“Many of the issues that drive contemporary public discussion are simultaneously political, economic and ideological. Galbraith epitomizes this nexus,” Waligorski wrote.

He credited Galbraith’s analysis with discrediting conventional assumptions and pieties and wrote, “At his best, Galbraith insists that we go beyond the popular, beyond surface appearances, and beyond simple tales, and look at consequences.”

To explain his interdisciplinary analytical approach, Waligorski used a term he invented 25 years ago, “normative political economy,” which involves using the tools of political theory “to examine the economic arguments of political writers and public intellectuals and the political arguments of economists and public intellectuals who write about economics.”

Asserting that “economic ideas are also political arguments,” Waligorski noted that some economists claim to be politically neutral. “They’re not. They have their own freight of ideas, preferences and starting assumptions, all of which often shape their conclusions.”

While Waligorski begins his examination of economists by looking at assumptions, values and what they ignore — “You can always tell a lot about a person by what they omit talking about!” — he admits that it is difficult for him to say what Galbraith ignores.

“I am still so close to the project, and I liked him as a person,” Waligorski said, adding that while Galbraith was a famously difficult individual, “He was nothing but kindness to me every time I met him.”

On further thought, Waligorski could identify a couple of shortcomings in Galbraith’s work — his “reluctance to carry many of his ideas to their logical conclusion” and “a tendency to dismiss other people’s arguments.” Nevertheless, Waligorski noted that Galbraith consistently kept in mind the fundamental question: “What kind of future do we want to hold together?”

“Galbraith never lost sight of that,” Waligorski said. “I looked at a lot of his private papers and private correspondence, and that question runs through his public work, his private work and through his conversations.”

“Galbraith’s core social-political concerns — power, equality and inequality, corporate influence over government, education, the fate of people left behind — have timeless relevance,” Waligorski  wrote in the preface to the book. “He may not always be profound or unique in his arguments, but his analysis and arguments invigorate and chasten American liberalism. He reminds us that alternatives to currently dominant political economy and its associated relations are possible. The questions he and others like him raise are central to the never-ending debate over what kind of society we currently possess and want, now and in the future.”

Waligorski’s conclusion extended this theme to today’s political economic context.

“Now when vocal theorists and powerful actors claim it is safe to allow economic forces and economic actors free reign; when they again assert that economic forces are a form of natural law that is violated by public intervention or by according social and political concerns the same importance as economic ones; and when there is growing, worldwide anger against such assumptions and policy, it is valuable to examine a theorist who for more than fifty years has epitomized, developed, and kept alive many of the liberal counterarguments,” Waligorski wrote. “Galbraith offers a continuing cry against indifference to the social, political, and moral context. The purpose of liberalism, Galbraith says, is to expand possibilities, to help bring about a better future, and to incorporate the entire population into an affluent society.”

Waligorski’s current book on Galbraith is his fourth book on normative political economy. He is considering two options for the subject of his next book: the justifications and defenses of inequality or the core elements of theories of democracy. Waligorski is a professor of political science in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. His book John Kenneth Galbraith: The Economist as Political Theorist is part of the series 20^th Century Political Thinkers published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.