Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

John Kenneth Galbraith

Biography

Early Life

  • John Kenneth Galbraith was born on October 15, 1908, Iona Station, Ontario, Canada
  • Was born into a farming family consisting of his 3 other siblings and both his parents

1900s

Childhood

  • Galbraith's father was a teacher and farmer. He was also active in local politics on the shores of Lake Erie.

  • At school he was clearly bright but useless at games, including basketball, despite being extremely tall.
  • Mr. Galbraith said he inherited his liberalism, his interest in politics and his wit from his parents. When he was 8 he remembers joining them at political rallies and was extremely interested in politics.

1910s

  • Growing up on the left side of the political spectrum definitely influenced his future theories and ideologies.

  • Farm life easily and naturally formed the early center of his life, and it imbued him with skills that helped him throughout his life, especially his hard working mindset.

  • Galbraith lived through some tough times in terms of they economy and overall life. This included the great depression, recession of 1937, and both world wars

  • The main thing he had observed was that the public sector was on the decrease while private sector was on the increase.

Early Career

  • In 1926, he enrolled at Ontario Agricultural College
  • The Depression dragged down Canadian farmers
  • This sparked his interest into economics
  • He graduated in 1934 and started to work as a professor at Harvard.

1920s

Early Adulthood

  • Undergraduate - University of Toronto
  • Master's Degree - University of California, Berkeley
  • Doctorate - agricultural economics

  • Galbraith was greatly influenced by Thorstein Veblen and his book, "The Theory of the Leisure Class." Veblen argued that people gathered wealth for the purpose of "conspicuous consumption."

1930s

  • 1937 - year long fellowship at University of Cambridge, being mentored by John Maynard Keynes.

  • Galbraith brought Keynes’ economic ideas of Keynesian to America.

  • He then taught at Princeton University from 1939 to 1940.

Adulthood

  • In 1941, as second world war had begun, Galbraith served as a deputy head of the Office of Price Administration. He helped prevent inflation during the war and directed the process of stabilizing the prices of goods and rent.
  • He was forced to resign in 1943, after he grew to be controversial to his peers. This resulted in his enemies outnumbering his friends.

1940s

  • Director of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey in 1945
  • Director of the Office of Economic Security Policy in the State Department in 1946
  • Member of the board of editors for Fortune magazine from 1943 to 1948. At Fortune, he became addicted to writing.
  • In 1949 he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics.
  • After that, writing became his passion. and he began to write regularly for 2-3 hours.

Success

  • He completed two books in 1952, "American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power" and "A Theory of Price Control." In "American Capitalism," he set out to debunk myths about the free market economy and explore concentrations of economic power.
  • "The Affluent Society" appeared in 1958, making Mr. Galbraith known around the world. In it, he depicted a consumer culture gone wild, rich in goods but poor in the social services that make for community.
  • Transitioned into politics
  • Began to advise and speech write for democratic politicians, most notably being John F. Kennedy

1950s

  • After Mr. Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he appointed Mr. Galbraith the United States ambassador to India.
  • he spent time in India advising the Indian government on economic matters.
  • took charge of both the American military and the diplomatic response during what was a brief but potentially explosive crisis in a border war with China.
  • He spent 27 months as ambassador, clashed with the State Department and was more favorably regarded as a diplomat by those outside the government. He fought for increased American military and economic aid for India.

1960s

1960s

  • Mr. Galbraith was admired, envied and sometimes scorned for his eloquence and wit and his ability to make complicated, dry issues understandable to any educated reader. He enjoyed his international reputation as "a slayer of sacred cows and a maverick among economists".

  • But other economists, even many of his fellow liberals, did not generally share his views on production and consumption, and he was not regarded by his peers as among the top-ranked theorists and scholars. Such criticism did not sit well with Mr. Galbraith, a man no one ever called modest, and he would respond that his critics had rightly recognized that his ideas were "deeply subversive of the established orthodoxy."

  • Was thought as a loose cannon by some of his peers.

  • After Kennedy was assassinated, Mr. Galbraith served as an adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson
  • The relationship between the two soon broke apart over their differences over the war in Vietnam.
  • Ended his career as the president of the American Economic Association, the profession's highest honor.
  • However continued to write throughout the remainder of his life.
  • Died on April 29, 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States at the age of 97

  • Married with 4 children

  • Man of many skills

  • a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, political activist, best-selling author, liberal thinker and intellectual.

His Beliefs

  • Galbraith is a critic of the neoclassical "conventional wisdom"
  • Galbraith saw the need for a greatly expanded role for government in the modern economy.
  • Galbraith himself believed that ‘economics is not a science’ but ‘a continuing interpretation of current circumstances.
Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi