History

PART ONE – Write a ORIGINAL POST

In 5 – 7 paragraphs answer the questions in articulate college level writing content.

1. How would you characterize Gailbraith's vision of American affluence, decades after he wrote the book? How relevant is his vision of American wealth in 2015? What has changed in American economic landscape, what has changed?

2. If you had to write a new edition of the book, what topics would you add and remove from this book and why?

PART TWO RESPONSES: NOTE the competitions standard to beat.

Discussion Respond to posts using the title associated with the response. FIRM

Please respond in articulate relevant college level content.3 -5 paragraphs with titles references each response.

1. Gailbraith’s vision of American affluence

I would characterize Gailbraith’s vision of American affluence as being synonymous to our 2015 and 2016 election process and slogan, Make America Great Again. This slogan sets forth Gailbraith's vision of American affluence firmly on the social and political agenda under the guise of maintaining its power – whereby the rich grows richer and the poor becomes poorer. According to Gailbraith, “Abridgement of the rigors of competition might even be unjust and immoral” (p. 35). A clear belief that the divide is a subtle one in which the Affluent Society meets in a competitive nature against its undervalued citizens in order to maintain economic security is just not right. American History will suffer from this incredulous line of economics for balancing power.

Oh my, does time travel fast as American wealth since 2015-2016 has set the stage and tone to regain its economic landscape by any means necessary because the policies thus far are not likely to restore the social and political balance, nor to reduce poverty.

If I had to write a new edition of the book, The Affluent Society, there is some reluctance in that history has a way of repeating itself and hopefully correcting itself. However, I would address (perhaps as Gailbraith inserted in his “Afterword”) the concluding part of this decade as a historical one that lends a serious eye of reproaches instigated on allegations of sexual misconduct: the #Me-Too Movement and its impact on an ever-evolving society celebrating women in the workforce.

2. Galbraith's America

Galbraith’s vision of American affluence seems to continue in today’s society, even though he wrote the book in the 1950s. The current American society is predicated on the growth of private industry and the selling of consumer goods while the public sector continues to be the “black sheep” of the society and economy. The disparity of wealth that he described in the book has only grown, with the top wage earners in the United States earning even more disproportionately than before.

His vision of American wealth is still relevant in modern times, and many politicians seem to refer to this work from time to time. (I had actually never read The Affluent Society before this class, so knowing this terminology as well as “conventional wisdom” makes a bit more sense now when hearing politicians speak.) He idealized an eradication of poverty and automatic stabilizers in the economy that would help the poor. Yet, with the resources that the United States and its large businesses have, the shareholders continue tend to get wealthier while those in the bottom of the social ladder get squeezed more.

One of the biggest changes in the American economic landscape that affect this vision of wealth was the inclusion of the “family wage,” or the two-earner household. In standard households, the father had previously been the money-maker and brought home the income for the whole family. Especially after the Vietnam War, women entered the workforce and contributed to a rise in family income. With inflation and unemployment issues that happened in the 1970s and 1980s, the purchasing power parity of this family wage decreased. To afford some of the same necessities and few luxuries in life, poorer individuals might turn to multiple jobs to bring home money. Even though food stamps and social programs for the poor were designed to keep people afloat, stereotypes about their use in society have resulted in reduced budgets in many states for these programs. Programs such as Medicaid have also been cut by some states for this same reason. In essence, it became harder for the poor to live – and even harder for them to live the “American Dream,” pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and become successful.

If I made a new edition of the book, I would not really remove any of the topics. Each have their own historical basis for his argument, and I think they hold up well. (I do think they can be a bit technical at times for the non-economist reader, however.) One major topic I would include is globalization. How would workers benefit from protectionism versus letting jobs go overseas to increase productivity? This is a big debate nowadays – the classical economists (Adam Smith in particular) noted that specialization and trade would increase the overall production of two economies. This is one of the core arguments for international trade. On the other side, people are losing their jobs in certain industries because of increased competition from overseas. How could the public sector help these people out? Galbraith already has argued that production is not the key factor in the “affluent society.” Globalization and trade seems to be a very big point in the 21stcentury that would be greatly beneficial to this work.