GALBRAITH, JOHN KENNETH — The Age of Uncertainty

UK, Andre Deutsch BBC. 1977, 1st. Hardcover with dust jacket, 25cm. Book, 368pp 3/4 kg Following Bronowski and Clark, Galbraith is about to appear in a BBC-initiated television series for which this book, developed from the scripts, can serve as a prospectus and a souvenir. Independently, it brings more colour than light to his announced topic, economic ideas and their consequences. There are dollops of Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus, heartier servings of Marx and Keynes; the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and the social criticism of Thorstein Veblen occasion much merriment at the pretensions of the rich. Throughout these early sections, indeed, Galbraith's jabs and swipes (at his fellow economists no less than at the Rockefellers), his frivolous asides (where Voltaire lived, Bernie Cornfield later lingered), his lapses and omissions (which render the Corn Laws unintelligible and make Henry Ward Beecher a total ass)--all suggest that none of this is to be taken quite seriously. The titular Age of Uncertainty, he avers, began with WW I in Europe, with the Depression in the US; Galbraith, leaving the confines of history, exfoliates upon the modern corporation (via an amusing amalgam of his own invention), the causes and cure of poverty, the urban quandary, and live politics. from wiki The leader of the British Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, and Keith Joseph objected to the screening of the series by the BBC as they perceived it too biased for a state-run TV station. Milton Friedman was brought over from Chicago to lecture against Galbraith's economic viewpoints with Nicholas Kaldor opposing him.The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, publications associated with the Conservative political party, dismissed the series whilst the Financial Times and New York Times viewed it positively.[ Milton Friedman presented his own response to Galbraith in his series "Free to Choose" Along with his other works Economics and the Public Purse and Money, The Age of Uncertainty reinforced Galbraith's stature as a major American economist who opposed the economic theories of Milton Friedman. Very Good/Good.