John Kenneth Galbraith, Dead at 97

John Kenneth Galbraith died today. Here's one of my favorite quotes from him: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

And here are a few excerpts from Bart Barnes's Washington Post article:

One of the most influential of his books was "The Affluent Society" (1958), which argued that overproduction of consumer goods was harming the public sector and depriving Americans of such benefits as clean air, clean streets, good schools and support for the arts. In the book, he painted a picture of epic opulence: "The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered, and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground."

...

Dr. Galbraith lamented what he believed to have been an excess accumulation of private wealth at the expense of public needs, and he warned that an unfettered free market system and capitalism without regulation would fail to meet basic social demands.

...

Dr. Galbraith was often in transit at airports all over the world, waiting for connecting flights. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald, he liked to browse in bookshops looking for examples of his own work. Once at LaGuardia Airport in New York, he asked a clerk if she had a copy of "The Great Crash," his 1955 analysis of the 1929 stock market collapse. "Not an easy book to sell at an airport," said the clerk, looking extremely sympathetic.