Galbraith was heavily influenced by the ideas of John Maynard
Keynes, Thorstein Veblen, and the “institutional” school of
economics. He rejected the technical and mathematical
approach of Neoclassical economics. Instead he emphasized
the interplay of economics, politics, culture, and tradition, a
combination that does not lend itself well to mathematical
modelling. He was much more of a “political economist” in the
style of the nineteenth century than a theoretical economist of
the late twentieth century.
His most famous book was The Affluent Society (1958), where
he argued that the United States had become obsessed with
overproducing consumer goods and instead should be making
large public investments in highways, education, and other
public services. His expression “private opulence and public
squalor” became well known, and many would agree is even
more relevant today than it was when he wrote the words more
than 50 years ago. In a later book, The New Industrial State
(1967), Galbraith argued that very few U.S. industries fit
economists’ model of perfect competition, and that the
economy was dominated by large, powerful firms. In general,
Galbraith continued to write about topics that he believed the
economics profession had neglected—topics such as
advertising, the separation of corporate ownership and
management, oligopoly, and government and military
spending.
Because of Galbraith’s desire to focus on the interplay of