The Voice of the Poor: Essays in Economic and Political Persuasion

Essays cover the interaction between rich and poor nations, economic development, U.S.-Soviet conflicts in Third World nations, the arms race, and inflation. What is surprising about these essays is not the insight and grace with which they are written- we have come to expect that- but the fact that nobody has expressed matters in quite this way before. John Kenneth Galbraith writes about what advice the poor nations (as, avoiding euphemism, he calls them) ought to render the more fortunate countries, and his logic is so forceful and his reasoning so natural that we say, "Why, yes, that's how we should look at things; that is what we should believe." Galbraith begins by pointing out the general neglect of historical process in considering the path by which the rich lands have moved to their present state of affluence, a process that is relevant for the poor countries as they seek political, cultural, and industrial development. Then he looks at the political and military and the newly and resolutely independent states, pointing out the dangers of confrontation in _other countries as the United States and the Soviet Union continue their now outworn imperial games. Next he addresses the problem of the arms competition between the great powers, the companion flow of weapons to the new states, and the resulting threat to world peace as well as to social and economic development. Finally, he admonishes the United States and the other industrial countries for their lack of restraint in fiscal policy, their excessive faith in monetary magic, their refusal to deal rationally with the interacting spiral of incomes and prices, and their blind insistence on economic theologies from the past that no longer accord with reality, no longer offer viable solutions. In this little book there are essential lessons to ponder- for the governments of the rich countries, for those of the poor lands, and for the concerned citizens in both. John Kenneth Galbraith is the Paul M. Warbu. rg Professor of Economics, Ementus, Harvard University, a former Ambassador to India, and a past President of the American Economic Association.