Thank you, Roger and Ric.  The New Scottish Enlightenment strikes again
(even if via Canada)!

1949 or 1950 were roughly the years when one of my Berkeley profs assigned
an article by Galbraith. I girded my loins for the usual self-abnegation and
force-feeding.  When I finished I could hardly believe it: reading this
approved economist had actually been fun. There was balm in Gilead, after
all!

Did he perhaps also have inner demons, like that other great comic, Robin
Williams? Did he laugh because it hurts too much to cry?  I prefer to
believe he had simply been weaned on that great Canadian humorist (and
economist), Stephen Butler Leacock.

Mason Gaffney

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Roger Sandilands
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 2:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Galbraith's writing voice

This reminds me that Galbraith's close friend Lauchlin Currie told me that
Harvard only appointed Alvin Hansen to the Littauer chair in 1937 because of
his apparently very orthodox credentials. They were discombobulated when
from his secure position he then revealed his heretical tendencies (teaming
up with Currie to make a joint presentation before the TNEC to explain the
fiscal causes of the 1937 recession).



Roger Sandilands



________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of
Ric Holt [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 5:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SHOE] Galbraith's writing voice

In January 1955 Galbraith gave testimony before the Joint Committee on the
Economic Report for 1955, titled "Fiscal Policy and the Economic Prospect."
The 1950s was a grand decade for Galbraith where he turned from just
publishing one co-authored book up to the age of 41 to publishing a plethora
of them. It was also the decade where he truly found his "writing voice."
Below is a short piece from his testimony that shows that voice we all know.
It's amazing what tenure will do.  He finally was awarded tenure in
November, 1949 at Harvard after a difficult struggle for the second time --
and his cheerful but sardonic voice never stopped after that for another
fifty years. Luck us.
Ric Holt

"Let me turn now to two or three specific questions on which the Committee
has asked for suggestions. (I pass over some of these because I am not
sufficiently informed. Thus I have never been sure that I fully understand
the doctrine of percentage depletion, although what I have heard of it
sounds very nice. It would seem to me important that it be promptly applied
to professors. There is no group where depletion of what is called
intellectual capital proceeds so immutably and leaves a more hideous void.
Surely we should be permitted to deduct from our taxes each April an
allowance for this annual deterioration. I am told that Powers models have
an analogous case.)"