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Economists usually shy away from talking about power. They assume an economy comprised of many small and medium-sized firms, each competing for consumer dollars. This circumvents the problem of economic power. John Kenneth Galbraith, however, refused to ignore power. It stood at the center of his economics, and he saw it as a key reason the US economy thrived in the years following World War II (WWII). This chapter examines Galbraith’s changing views regarding economic power. American Capitalism explains how countervailing power, or power on the other side of the market, solves the problem of economic power. In The New Industrial State, scientists and educated managers within the firm (the technostructure) mitigate the negative consequences of economic power wielded by large firms. The Affluent Society and Economics and the Public Purpose look to the government as the main check on corporate power. It does this through labor legislation or programs such as the New Deal and Fair Deal. This chapter then evaluates the different solutions Galbraith proffered to the problem of economic power. It contends that Galbraith got three things right when analyzing economic power. First, we no longer live in a world of scarcity due to oligopolistic firms. Second, capitalism was different in the post-WWII era because the US economy thrived and gains were shared widely. Third, Galbraith understood that power was unequally distributed – both between the public and private sectors and within the private sector itself. On the other hand, Galbraith was overly optimistic in believing the market economy or the public sector could counter corporate power.

Today, as we hurtle towards imminent planetary destruction in the age of the Anthropocene, we believe it may be instructive to try and understand if the ancient science of spirituality can prove useful in humankind's ability to change course, even at this late hour. We argue that such a paradigm shift is critically essential for human survival and that without the inner transformation proposed by this science, it may prove impossible to build a society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. This chapter draws from foundational texts and authoritative sources across multiple religious traditions, based upon which it outlines a brief sketch of the ancient science of spirituality. We begin with an account of the differentia specifica of this science, where we delve into what kind of science this is. Since it is centrally concerned with inner transformation, we briefly outline the theory of change embedded in this science and the kind of rejuvenation it enables, which makes it possible for us to clearly perceive the key elements and the structure of reality. We then spell out the impact this has on the nature of human action, continually teasing out implications for policy and practice in our time. We provide a few concrete illustrations of the same. Inter alia, we also show how many of these insights can be found even within modern scientific and philosophical traditions, thereby indicating possibilities of convergence and synthesis between ancient and modern science, following thereby the guidance of genuine spirituality.

The goal of this chapter is to reexamine the nature and structure of the military–industrial complex (MIC) through the works of John Kenneth Galbraith. MIC, or military power as he prefers, is a coalition of vested interests within the state and industry that promoted the military power in the name of “national security” for their interests. Galbraith’s theory of giant corporations helps us understand the role of military corporations in the MIC. Moreover, he is a critical scholar in examining this topic because he was a political insider in the Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations and a prominent public intellectual against the Vietnam War. Against this background, this chapter has three parts. After explaining the development of military Keynesianism with respect to the main economic thoughts, it examines the history of the MIC and its impact on economic priorities during and after the Cold War through Galbraith’s works. Finally, this chapter discusses MIC’s relevancy today and evaluates Galbraith’s prophecies.

The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.

This study is a radical interactionist analysis of family conflict. Drawing on both a negotiated order perspective and Athen's theory of complex dominative encounters, this study analyzes the role that domination plays in conflicts among intimates. As the family engages in repeated conflicts over roles, the family also engages in negotiations over the family order, what role each party should play, interpretations of past events, and plans for the future. These conflicts take place against a backdrop of patriarchy that asymmetrically distributes power in the family to determine the family order. The data from this study come from a content analysis of mothers with substance use problems as depicted in the reality television show Intervention. The conflicts in these families reveal that these families develop a grinding family order in which families engaged in repeated conflict but also continued to operate as and identify as a family. These conflicts are shaped by and reinforce patriarchal expectations that mothers are central to family operation. The intervention at the end of each episode offered an opportunity for the family to engage in a concerted campaign to try to force the mother into treatment and reestablish the family order.

Do digital technologies of early 21st century capitalism promote or reduce consumer sovereignty? This chapter addresses this question by examining John Kenneth Galbraith’s critique of consumer sovereignty during the post-war period of industrial society and looks at the insights he provides to understand the impact of platform capitalism on consumer sovereignty today. This chapter has the following sections: (1) I review the main postulates of Galbraith’s theory; (2) I highlight the main differences between traditional advertising and online behavioral advertising; (3) I explain how online behavioral advertisement strengthens Galbraith’s dependence effect and revised sequence theories; (4) I then discuss normative challenges raised by digital platform corporations to individual sovereignty; and (5) finally, I argue that platform capitalism is a mature form of Galbraith’s “new industrial state.”

John Kenneth Galbraith’s social balance theory is an important theme in many of his books, particularly The Affluent Society, The New Industrial State, and Economics and the Public Purpose. Galbraith’s social balance theory states that forces driving private consumption in an industrial society will outpace the development and provision of public goods and services with consequences on the well-being of society (Stanfield, 1996, p. 49). The theory leads to several questions: (1) What is the specific relationship between private and public goods and consumption? (2) What is optimized with social balancing? (3) Does the relationship between private and public goods change over time? and (4) How do we evaluate the types of public goods we need? This chapter explores these questions and examines the type of public goods we need today to serve our communities better. For example, police presence and activities in many minority communities are now viewed negatively, as evidenced by the “defund the police” movement. Conversely, some have advocated for greater public spending on community mental health programs and new initiatives to deal with racism in communities.

In 1979, Galbraith wrote a manuscript titled “The Social Consequences of Inflation and Unemployment and Their Remedies.” The manuscript was found in the John Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers at the John F. Kennedy Library. The reasons for Galbraith to write the article might appear at first glance to be purely contextual. At the macroeconomic level, the United States was experiencing stagflation, a situation unseen since 1945, resulting in double-digit inflation rates and high unemployment. A policy debate was going on about the Phillips curve and whether there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment. Milton Friedman challenged the Keynesian analyses of the Phillips curve in the mid-1960s (Friedman, 1977). Galbraith’s 16-page draft manuscript provides us an incisive summary of Galbraith’s views about the causes of stagflation and what can be done about it. He provides us with an alternative to the neoclassical synthesis of Samuelson and Solow and the neoliberal thinking of Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek.