The Affluent Society

by John Kenneth Galbraith

In western countries, in modern times, economic growth and expanding public activity have, with rare exceptions, gone together. Each has served the other, as indeed they must. Yet the conventional wisdom is far from surrendering on the point. Any growth in public services is a manifestation of an intrinsically evil trend. If the vigor of the race is not in danger, personal liberty is. The structure of the economy may also be at stake. In one branch of the conventional wisdom, the American economy is never far removed from socialism, and the movement toward socialism may be measured by the rise in public spending. Thus even the most commonplace of public services, for one part of the population, fall under the considerable handicap of being identified with social revolution. Finally—also a closely related point—the payment for publicly produced services has long been linked to the problem of inequality. By having the rich pay more, the services were provided and at the same time the goal of greater equality was advanced. This community of objectives has never appealed to those being equalized. Not unnaturally, some part of their opposition has been directed to the public services themselves. By attacking these, they could attack the leveling tendencies of taxation. This has helped to keep alive the notion that the public services for which they pay are inherently inferior to privately produced goods.