Essays From the Poor to the Rich (An Old and Rare Book)

About The Book What is surprising about these essays is not the insight and gt4ce 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 but 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 relationships between the great powers 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 the world peace as well as to social and economic development. Finally, he admonishes he United States and the other industrial countries for their lack of restraint in fiscal policy, their successive 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 visible 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.

About The Author John Kenneth Galbraith is the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus Harvard University, a former Ambassador to India and a past President of the American Economic Association.

Preface In THE SPRING OF 1982, I was invited to India to give the Rajaji Lectures. This is an annual lecture series given traditionally by someone from outside the country under the auspices of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the great Indian cultural organization. It remembers the wise, diverse, and superbly motivated life (1878-1972) of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, known affectionately by his countrymen as Rajaji. He was Governor General of- India, serving in the years 1948-1950 between Independence and the establishment of the Republic. The Indians accord great warmth of hospitality to their visiting lecturer in an art form in which they are uniquely accomplished, and it was an especially enjoyable return to a land that my wife and I had both learned to love.

As I tell in the introductory first chapter, my theme in these lectures was the relations between the new states and the older industrial lands, socialist and nonsocialist.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages