The Affluent Society
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
First published in 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society stands as one of the most provocative and consequential works of economic thought in the twentieth century, a book that fundamentally challenged the assumptions underpinning postwar American prosperity. Galbraith argues with incisive wit and unflinching clarity that the United States had become a nation of extraordinary private wealth set against a backdrop of neglected public squalor — a paradox he termed the dependence effect, whereby consumer desires are artificially manufactured by the very corporations that profit from satisfying them. Written in Galbraith's characteristically elegant and acerbic prose, the work dismantles the conventional wisdom of classical economics, illustrating how an obsession with the production of private goods impoverishes the public sphere — from schools and infrastructure to the environment. A landmark text in political economy, its central arguments about inequality, consumer culture, and the role of government investment remain urgently relevant, posing a question that modern societies are still struggling to answer: can a truly civilised nation afford to remain so affluent in only the narrowest sense?
Author: J. K. Galbraith
Format: Paperback
Genre: Business & economics
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
First published in 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society stands as one of the most provocative and consequential works of economic thought in the twentieth century, a book that fundamentally challenged the assumptions underpinning postwar American prosperity. Galbraith argues with incisive wit and unflinching clarity that the United States had become a nation of extraordinary private wealth set against a backdrop of neglected public squalor — a paradox he termed the dependence effect, whereby consumer desires are artificially manufactured by the very corporations that profit from satisfying them. Written in Galbraith's characteristically elegant and acerbic prose, the work dismantles the conventional wisdom of classical economics, illustrating how an obsession with the production of private goods impoverishes the public sphere — from schools and infrastructure to the environment. A landmark text in political economy, its central arguments about inequality, consumer culture, and the role of government investment remain urgently relevant, posing a question that modern societies are still struggling to answer: can a truly civilised nation afford to remain so affluent in only the narrowest sense?