Affluent Society

The book The Affluent Society (1958) was written by the U.S. economist John Kenneth Galbraith. The book is a coherent critique of the assumptions of classical economics, aspects of American culture, and conservative thinking in general. It is one of the most widely read and highest selling works within modern economics. As well as spawning a series of memorable phrases that entered the popular vocabulary, the book is an influential forerunner to contemporary social attitudes toward overconsumption, the problems associated with unfettered economic growth, and the growth of enclaves of private consumption in the Western world.

The work consists of a number of interrelated theses, but The Affluent Society's essential line of reasoning is found in its challenge to the orthodox assumption that the “problem of production,” referring to the capacity of an economy to produce enough goods and services, had been solved. Galbraith's expression “the affluent society” is not a triumphalist endorsement of Western economic progress, but an ironic phrase meant to provoke, question, and challenge the conventional wisdom concerning the socially agreed meanings of economic progress. Thanks to modern economic progress, people in Western countries—here it is worth noting that Galbraith's argument was mostly targeted at the United States but is applicable more widely—have an abundant supply of necessities and, of course, also a wide range of luxuries and nonessential banalities. Galbraith urges the reader [Page 22]not to consider such increased outputs as equating to affluence, wealth, or even happiness. Quite the contrary, the problem of what to do with such mighty economic capacity, what uses to put it, and how to distribute it more effectively remains a burning social question. Or, at least it should be a burning question, Galbraith argues. Yet, as he points out, such questions are never really considered by most people, institutions, or governments. Moreover, the disciplinary and scientific norms of economics do not allow such value-based questions to be part of its agenda.

The reasons for not asking these questions relate in various ways to what Galbraith wryly and disparagingly referred to as “the conventional wisdom.” This was the gap between what was actually “right” and what society or a group of people considered merely “acceptable.” Reinforced by reward, propped up by ritual, and comforted by fitting in, most people are happy to believe what others and the “official” history teaches them to believe is acceptable. This happens not just to individuals who fall into regular patterns of work, lifestyle, and consumption, but to policymakers and academics alike. Perhaps most important, such an edifice of conventional wisdom dominates the scientific field of economics, sometimes labeled a “dismal science,” but also widely seen as the queen of the social sciences. Galbraith argues that this leads to an inherent conservatism in the discipline, a tolerance of calcifying ideas, which is supported by a reliance on increasingly arcane, abstract mathematical models.

More important for Galbraith, the inherited wisdom of the neoclassical economic model found in David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Adam Smith still holds sway within the field. Although intellectually comforting and indeed unchallenged in explaining the functioning of market efficiencies, such models fail to adequately deal with the contingencies and problems of the modern economy. In fact, Galbraith argues, in not dealing with such matters and in favoring the mood of the markets above important social questions about economic security, they actually constitute a threat to continuing affluence. The baggage these anachronistic models carry with them are sets of ideas and habits about economic accumulation forged in an earlier era of modernity, a style of capitalism where markets dominated and unfettered growth, acquisition, credit expansion, and progress were all unquestioned values. This intrinsic conservativeness was supported by the inertia and vested interests of large institutions, such as firms and government, who believed that economic security was reliant on ever-expanding production. Production, capital formation, and investment—the flip side of which was an empowered consumer whose wants were never really satisfied because they were essentially managed by the producers—became the paramount goal of the economy and its managers. What was lost from view was a pathway to alleviating poverty, which still existed but which most people chose to shut from their minds in favor of making their way up the status ladder.

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