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169-631: Some of the Great Society initiatives were derived from New Frontier proposals which had stalled during the Kennedy administration . Johnson's success depended on his skills of persuasion and the Democratic landslide victory in the 1964 elections , which brought many new liberals into Congress and made the House of Representatives of 1965 the most liberal since 1938. In the 88th Congress , there

338-656: A Job Corps and Volunteers in Service to America ; the Food Stamp Act of 1964 provided low-income people assistance in purchasing food; the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 authorized federal expenditure on schools with low-income students; and the Social Security Amendments of 1965 created Medicaid , which funds some medical costs for low-income individuals, and Medicare ,

507-421: A satirical novel, The Triumph (1968). The postwar period also was memorable for Galbraith because of his work, along with Eleanor Roosevelt and Hubert Humphrey , to establish a progressive policy organization Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) in support of the cause of economic and social justice in 1947. In 1952, Galbraith's friends Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and George Ball recruited him to work as

676-436: A 'quickie' or a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm, to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peacetime; that it siphons out of

845-746: A National Humanities Foundation." In August 1964, Representative William S. Moorhead of Pennsylvania proposed legislation to implement the commission's recommendations. Support from the White House followed in September, when Johnson lent his endorsement during a speech at Brown University . In March 1965, the White House proposed the establishment of a National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities and requested $ 20 million in start-up funds. The commission's report had generated other proposals, but

1014-648: A bill only if Medicare were included." Medicare finally came about with the Social Security Act of 1965 which authorized Medicare and provided federal funding for many of the medical costs of older Americans. The legislation overcame the bitter resistance, particularly from the American Medical Association , to the idea of publicly funded health care or " socialized medicine " by making its benefits available to everyone over sixty-five, regardless of need, and by linking payments to

1183-600: A bipartisan law signed by Dwight Eisenhower , was transformed into the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts , a living memorial to the assassinated president. Fundraising for the original cultural center had been poor prior to legislation creating the Kennedy Center, which passed two months after the president's death and provided $ 23 million for construction. The Kennedy Center opened in 1971. In

1352-648: A book which has been described as "a manifesto for anticommunist liberals, defining an agenda that combined the social concerns of the New Deal with support for the Cold War policy of containment of Soviet power." Within Schlesinger's analytical framework of the domestic politics of the United States during this period he identifies three main ideological currents: 1) what he calls the "vital center" are

1521-518: A chapter of his 1969 book The Death of Privacy to the National Data Bank. Historian Alan Brinkley has suggested that the most important domestic achievement of the Great Society may have been its success in translating some of the demands of the civil rights movement into law. Four civil rights acts were passed, including three laws in the first two years of Johnson's presidency. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade job discrimination and

1690-459: A comprehensive Economic Message to Congress which had been in preparation for several weeks. The legislative proposals put forward in this message included: The following month, the first of these seven measures became law, and the remaining six measures had been signed by the end of June. Altogether, the economic stimulus program provided an estimated 420,000 construction jobs under a new Housing Act, $ 175 million in higher wages for those below

1859-736: A confidant of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and extensively advised the Indian government on economic matters. Kennedy considered India to be important not just in its own right, but also because an Indian diplomat always served as the chief commissioner of the International Control Commission (ICC). Thus, Galbraith came to be involved in American policy towards Southeast Asia from his perch as an ambassador in New Delhi. In 1961, when Kennedy considered intervening in

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2028-605: A critic of the increasing American involvement in Vietnam. In November 1961, he visited South Vietnam where he presented an unflattering picture of the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem , saying "we are now married to failure". He advised finding a new South Vietnamese leader, saying "nothing succeeds like successors". In May 1962, Galbraith cabled Kennedy, stating that according to the most recent statements made by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara , Diem had about 170,000 men under arms at present, while claiming that his country

2197-503: A fraction of the campaign money that Johnson had. Though Johnson won the primary, the very narrow margin of his victory was widely considered to be a defeat. On the night of the primary, Galbraith celebrated the result at McCarthy campaign headquarters as if it were an outright victory. The day after the New Hampshire primary, Galbraith was widely cheered by his students when he entered his lecture hall at Harvard. The results of

2366-706: A greater emphasis on skills and links to U.S. citizens; and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 , which prohibited housing discrimination. Additional projects included the National Endowment for the Arts ; consumer protection measures; the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 , which expanded the federal housing program; the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965 , which limited motor vehicle emissions; and

2535-548: A health insurance program for people aged 65 and over. Measures designed to end racial injustice included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which prohibited racial segregation in schools, public spaces, and workplaces; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which ensured that minorities could exercise their right to vote; the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 , which abolished quotas based on national origin and placed

2704-468: A high concentration of low-income children. During its first year of operation, the Act authorized a $ 1.1 billion program of grants to states, for allocations to school districts with large numbers of children of low-income families, funds to use community facilities for education within the entire community, funds to improve educational research and to strengthen state departments of education, and grants for

2873-662: A leave of absence from his magazine work for a senior position in the State Department as director of the Office of Economic Security Policy where he was nominally in charge of economic affairs regarding Germany, Japan, Austria, and South Korea. Distrusted by senior diplomats, he was relegated to routine work, with few opportunities to make policy. Galbraith favored détente with the Soviet Union, along with Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and General Lucius D. Clay ,

3042-584: A military governor of the US Zone in Germany from 1947 to 1949, but they were out of step with the containment policy then being developed by George Kennan and favored by the majority of the US major policymakers. After a disconcerting half-year, Galbraith resigned in September 1946 and went back to his magazine writing on economics issues. Later, he immortalized his frustration with "the ways of Foggy Bottom " in

3211-502: A national Teacher Corps to provide teachers to poverty-stricken areas of the United States. The Act also began a transition from federally funded institutional assistance to individual student aid. In 1964, basic improvements in the National Defense Education Act were achieved, and total funds available to educational institutions were increased. The yearly limit on loans to graduate and professional students

3380-601: A number of novels. Among his novels, A Tenured Professor achieved particular critical acclaim. Galbraith wrote book reviews, e.g., of The Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace , a 1967 political satire, under the pen name of Herschel McLandress , a name of a fictional Scottish mentor featured in the Tenured Professor . He also used the pseudonym, Mark Épernay, when he published The McLandress Dimension in 1963. Galbraith

3549-678: A provision for special payments under the social security program to certain uninsured individuals aged 72 and over. The Social Security Amendments of 1965 included a 7% increase in cash benefits, a liberalization of the definition of disability, a liberalization of the amount a person can earn and still get full benefits (the so-called retirement test), payment of benefits to eligible children aged 18–21 who are attending school, payment of benefits to widows at age 60 on an actuarially reduced basis, coverage of self-employed physicians, coverage of tips as wages, liberalization of insured-status requirements for persons already aged 72 or over, an increase to $ 6,600

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3718-516: A runaway wage-price spiral were seen as likely. As a part of a team charged with keeping inflation from damaging the war effort, Galbraith served as a deputy administrator of the Office of Price Administration (OPA) during World War II in 1941–1943. The OPA directed the process of stabilization of prices and rents. On May 11, 1941, President Roosevelt created the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS). On August 28, 1941, it became

3887-732: A seminar for the delegates to the Palau Constitutional Convention. He became the first person to earn honorary citizenship of Palau. In 1984, he visited the USSR, writing that the Soviet economy had made "great material progress" as, "in contrast to Western industrial economy," the USSR "makes full use of its manpower." In 1985, the American Humanist Association named him the Humanist of

4056-418: A society in the future with radically different privacy standards. Packard criticized advertisers' unfettered use of private information to create marketing schemes. He compared a recent Great Society initiative by then-president Lyndon B. Johnson , the National Data Bank, to the use of information by advertisers and argued for increased data privacy measures to ensure that information did not find its way into

4225-688: A speechwriter for the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson . The involvement of several intellectuals from the ADA in the Stevenson campaign attracted controversy as the Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the ADA intellectuals as being "tainted" by "well documented Red associations"; Galbraith later said one of his regrets was that McCarthy failed to condemn him as one of Stevenson's "red" advisers. During his time as an adviser to President John F. Kennedy , Galbraith

4394-624: A stone inukshuk overlooking the Galbraith family farm on the Thompson (Hogg) Line just east of Willey Road, just north of the one room school he attended. The family home—a large white farm house—still stands, as do many of the original farm buildings. Even before becoming a president of the American Economic Association, Galbraith was considered as an iconoclast by many economists. This is partly because he rejected

4563-523: A team that was headed by Kennedy's brother, Robert . The Kennedy administration with its new Secretary of Defense , Robert S. McNamara , gave a strong priority to countering communist political subversion and guerrilla tactics in the "wars of national liberation" to decolonize the Third World , long held in Western vassalage. As well as fighting and winning a nuclear war , the American military

4732-517: A vow of poverty, and an increase in the contribution and benefit base from $ 6,600 to $ 7,800, beginning in 1968. In addition, the Social Security Amendments of 1967 provided the first major amendments of Medicare. These social security amendments extended the coverage of the program to include certain services previously excluded, simplified reimbursement procedures under both the hospital and medical insurance plans, and facilitated

4901-513: A year-long fellowship at the University of Cambridge , England, where he was influenced by John Maynard Keynes . He then traveled in Europe for several months in 1938, attending an international economic conference and developing his ideas. He served for a few months in summer 1934 in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As a Harvard teacher in 1938 he was given charge of a research project for

5070-967: Is my best book", an assertion Galbraith delivered "a little mischievously." After the beginning of the Great Recession of 2008 , Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929 (1955) and other books containing warnings about the dangers of an unrestrained speculative mood without proper government oversight found an attentive readership again. In 2010, the Library of America published a new edition of Galbraith's major works, edited by his son, James K. Galbraith : The Affluent Society & Other Writings, 1952–1967 : American Capitalism , The Great Crash, 1929 , The Affluent Society , and The New Industrial State . On this occasion, Bill Moyers interviewed James K. Galbraith about his father, his works, and his legacy. In American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power , published in 1952, Galbraith concluded that

5239-447: Is to the young in heart, regardless of age. ... Can we carry through in an age where we will witness not only new breakthroughs in weapons of destruction, but also a race for mastery of the sky and the rain, the ocean and the tides, the far side of space, and the inside of men's minds? ... All mankind waits upon our decision. A whole world waits to see what we shall do. And we cannot fail that trust, and we cannot fail to try. Among

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5408-553: The American Economic Association . The Journal of Post Keynesian Economics benefited from Galbraith's support and he served as the chairman of its board from its beginning. During the shooting of The World at War , a British television documentary series (1973–74), Galbraith described his experiences in the Roosevelt war administration. Among other things, he spoke about the initial confusion during

5577-609: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a private, non-profit corporation. The law initiated federal aid through the CPB for the operation, as opposed to the funding of capital facilities, of public broadcasting. The CPB initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television system, but in 1969 decided to start the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). A public radio study commissioned by

5746-616: The Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the Democratic slogan to inspire America to support him. The phrase developed into a label for his administration's domestic and foreign programs. In the words of Robert D. Marcus: "Kennedy entered office with ambitions to eradicate poverty and to raise America's eyes to the stars through the space program." Kennedy proclaimed in his speech: We stand today on

5915-700: The Eighty-ninth Congress , with a 68–32 margin in the Senate and a 295–140 margin in the House of Representatives . Johnson won a large majority of the Jewish vote, a liberal constituency that gave strong support to the Great Society. The political realignment allowed House leaders to alter rules that had allowed Southern Democrats to kill New Frontier and civil rights legislation in committee, which aided efforts to pass Great Society legislation. In 1965,

6084-665: The Equal Pay Act into law on June 10, 1963. During the law's first ten years, 171,000 employees received back pay totaling about 84 million dollars. Under Kennedy, the first significant package of anticrime bills since 1934 were passed. The Kennedy Administration's anticrime measures included the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act , which was signed into law on September 22, 1961. This program aimed to prevent youth from committing delinquent acts. In 1963, 288 mobsters were brought to trial by

6253-589: The Federal Transit Administration ), High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 which resulted in the creation of high-speed rail between New York and Washington , and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 —a bill largely taken credit for by Ralph Nader , whose book Unsafe at Any Speed he claims helped inspire the legislation. In 1964, Johnson named Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson to be

6422-703: The HEW and the FTC to establish and define voluntary standard sizes. The original would have mandated uniform standards of size and weight for comparison shopping, but the final law only outlawed exaggerated size claims. The Child Safety Act of 1966 prohibited any chemical so dangerous that no warning can make it safe. The Flammable Fabrics Act of 1967 set standards for children's sleepwear, but not baby blankets. The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 required inspection of meat which must meet federal standards. The Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968 required lenders and credit providers to disclose

6591-547: The Head Start program, aid to urban mass transit, a demonstration cities program, a housing act that included rental subsidies, and an act for higher education. The Johnson Administration submitted 87 bills to Congress, and Johnson signed 84, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in US congressional history. The Naked Society is a 1964 book on privacy by Vance Packard . The book argues that changes in technology are encroaching on privacy and could create

6760-820: The Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur , Uttar Pradesh . (Even after leaving office, Galbraith remained a friend and supporter of India.) Because of his recommendation, First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy undertook her 1962 diplomatic missions in India and Pakistan . After leaving the American embassy in India, Galbraith continued to advise Johnson, now president, against escalating American involvement in Vietnam. In 1965, he advised Johnson that he should "instruct officials and spokesmen to stop saying

6929-543: The National Trails System Act of 1968 , which created a system of hiking trails. Many of the Great Society projects were opposed by Republicans , who objected to what they considered "government handouts". Johnson's popularity declined as he committed more troops to the Vietnam War , which drew on resources that could have been directed toward the Great Society. Some projects were expanded under

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7098-742: The Peterson Report after the commission's second chair, Esther Peterson ), was issued in October 1963 and documented widespread discrimination against women in the workplace. Among the practices addressed by the group were labor laws pertaining to hours and wages, the quality of legal representation for women, the lack of education and counseling for working women, and federal insurance and tax laws that affected women's incomes. Recommendations included affordable child care for all income levels, hiring practices that promoted equal opportunity for women, and paid maternity leave. The commission, reflecting

7267-597: The Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000) for his public service and contributions to science. Galbraith was born on October 15, 1908, to Canadians of Scottish descent, Sarah Catherine (Kendall) and Archibald "Archie" Galbraith, in Iona Station, Ontario , Canada, and was raised in Dunwich Township, Ontario . He had three siblings: Alice, Catherine, and Archibald William (Bill). By the time he

7436-656: The U.S. Navy created the Navy Seals . The U.S. military increased in size and faced possible confrontation with the Soviets with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. American troops were sent to Laos and South Vietnam in increasing numbers. The United States provided a clandestine operation to supply military aid and support to Cuban exiles in

7605-890: The "Maneli affair", named after Mieczysław Maneli , the Polish Commissioner to the ICC who, together with Ramchundur Goburdhun , the Indian Commissioner on the ICC, approached leaders in both North and South Vietnam with a proposal to make both Vietnams neutral in the Cold War. On April 1, 1963, Galbraith flew to Washington to discuss the peace proposal with Kennedy, where the president told him "to be prepared to seize upon any favorable moment to reduce our commitment [in Vietnam]", though it "might yet be some time away." In September 1963, Maneli met with Ngô Đình Nhu ,

7774-407: The "New Deal liberals" who had been gaining ground politically since 1933, 2) right-wing racial extremists mostly confined to the Southern regions of the United States, and 3) Communists who Schlesinger identifies as posing the "primary opposition to American values from within and without". Schlesinger, working on Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960, sought an image of the candidate that would show

7943-476: The "largest reform agenda since Roosevelt's New Deal" and as what also managed to "complete the unfinished work of JFK's New Frontier." In his book John F. Kennedy on Leadership , John A. Barnes stated Congress in fact passed few of Kennedy's New Frontier proposals during his lifetime, with major initiatives not being enacted until 1964 and 1965, during Johnson's Presidency. The United States Department of Labor also stated that Johnson "immediately set about to enact

8112-417: The 1920s. Opposition to the OPA came from conservatives in Congress and the business community. It undercut Galbraith and he was forced out in May 1943, accused of "communistic tendencies". He was promptly hired by Henry Luce , a conservative Republican and a dominant figure in American media as publisher of Time and Fortune magazines. Galbraith worked for Luce for five years and expounded Keynesianism to

8281-434: The American business leadership. Luce allegedly said to President Kennedy, "I taught Galbraith how to write—and have regretted it ever since." Galbraith saw his role as educating the entire nation on how the economy worked, including the role of big corporations. He was combining his writing with numerous speeches to business groups and local Democratic party meetings, as well as frequently testifying before Congress. During

8450-402: The American economy was managed by a triumvirate of big business, big labor, and an activist government. Galbraith defined the actions of the industry lobby groups and unions as countervailing power . He contrasted this arrangement with the period prior to the previous Depression, when big business had relatively free rein over the economy. His 1955 bestseller The Great Crash, 1929 describes

8619-490: The American family stood at $ 8,000, double what it had been a decade earlier. Johnson's first public reference to the "Great Society" took place during a speech to students on May 7, 1964, on Ohio University 's historic College Green in Athens, Ohio : And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build a Great Society. It is a society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled. He later formally presented his specific goals for

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8788-551: The American people, leading Galbraith to sarcastically ask why Diem needed more American support. He concluded his cable to Kennedy: "Incidentally, who is the man in your administration who decides what countries are strategic? I would like to have his name and address and ask him what is so important about this real estate in the Space Age". In January 1963, when Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki visited New Delhi, Galbraith met with him to declare to him his "despair" about Kennedy's Vietnam policies and to ask that Poland, as one of

8957-451: The CPB and the Ford Foundation and conducted from 1968 to 1969 led to the establishment of National Public Radio , a public radio system under the terms of the amended Public Broadcasting Act. Two long-planned national cultural and arts facilities received federal funding that would allow for their completion through Great Society legislation. A National Cultural Center, suggested during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration and created by

9126-415: The Chicago police searched Galbraith's room at the Hilton hotel, alleging that he was hiding anti-war protesters. None were found. After Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination, Galbraith reluctantly endorsed Humphrey as preferable to the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. In autumn 1972, Galbraith was an adviser and assistant to Nixon's rival candidate, Senator George McGovern , in

9295-545: The Chinese foreign minister, Chen Yi , was willing to meet him in private. However, Rusk forbade Harriman to talk to Chen under any circumstances, fearful of Republican attacks against the Democrat Kennedy if the meetings should come out to the media, causing Harriman to explode in rage that during World War II, Roosevelt had allowed him to meet whoever was necessary. Unable to change Rusk's mind, Harriman appealed to Galbraith, who in his turn appealed to Kennedy. Kennedy granted permission for Harriman to meet Chen, provided that it

9464-501: The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964's Community Action Program, as noted by one study, "hospitals, medical schools, community groups, and health departments received grants to plan and administer neighborhood health centers in low-income areas." One hundred neighborhood health centers had been set up under the Economic Opportunity Act by 1971. A number of changes were made to the Social Security program in terms of both coverage and adequacy of benefits. The Tax Adjustment Act of 1966 included

9633-465: The Great Society in another speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan , on May 22, 1964. We are going to assemble the best thought and broadest knowledge from all over the world to find these answers. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of conferences and meetings—on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. From these studies, we will begin to set our course toward

9802-455: The Great Society was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel . It was signed into law on April 11, 1965, less than three months after it was introduced. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, initially allocating more than $ 1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs to schools with

9971-431: The Great Society's main contribution to the environment was an extension of protections beyond those aimed at the conservation of untouched resources. In a message he transmitted to Congress, President Johnson said: New Frontier The term New Frontier was used by Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech, delivered July 15, in the 1960 United States presidential election to

10140-427: The Great Society. Almost immediately after the Ann Arbor speech, 14 separate task forces began studying nearly all major aspects of United States society under the guidance of presidential assistants Bill Moyers and Richard N. Goodwin . In his use of task forces to provide expert advice on policy, Johnson was following Kennedy's example, but unlike Kennedy, Johnson directed his task forces to work in secret. His intent

10309-551: The Kennedy Administration had proposed were passed by Congress, and in 1963, 35 out of 58 "must" bills were enacted. As noted by Larry O'Brien, "A myth had arisen that he [Kennedy] was uninterested in Congress, or that he 'failed' with Congress. The facts, I believe, are otherwise. Kennedy's legislative record in 1961–63 was the best of any President since Roosevelt's first term." However, the Independence Hall Association 's website U.S. History.org describes then-Vice President and future U.S. President Lyndon Johnson 's Great Society as

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10478-464: The Land Grant College in a century. It provided better college libraries, ten to twenty new graduate centers, several new technical institutes, classrooms for several hundred thousand students, and twenty-five to thirty new community colleges a year. This major piece of legislation was followed by the Higher Education Act of 1965 , which increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships and low-interest loans for students, and established

10647-446: The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act into law, creating both the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities as separate, independent agencies. Lobbying for federally funded arts and humanities support began during the Kennedy Administration. In 1963 three scholarly and educational organizations—the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Council of Graduate Schools in America, and

10816-446: The National Resources Planning Board. From 1943 until 1948, he served as an editor of Fortune magazine. In 1949, he was appointed professor of economics at Harvard. He also taught at the Harvard Extension School . The United States went into WWII with an economy still not fully recovered from the Great Depression . Because wartime production needs mandated large budget deficits and an accommodating monetary policy, inflation and

10985-504: The New Frontier witnessed the passage of a broad range of social and economic reforms. However, proposed legislation which was considered more revolutionary languished in Congress. According to Theodore White , under John F. Kennedy, more new legislation was actually approved and passed into law than at any other time since the 1930s. When Congress recessed in the latter part of 1961, 33 out of 53 bills that Kennedy had submitted to Congress were enacted. A year later, 40 out of 54 bills that

11154-424: The New Hampshire primary showed that Johnson was vulnerable. On March 16, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy announced he was entering the presidential race. Kennedy asked Galbraith to withdraw his endorsement of McCarthy and to endorse him instead, a request that Galbraith refused. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. , who campaigned with Galbraith in New Hampshire for McCarthy, switched his support to Kennedy, on

11323-537: The OPA activities, which started with six people, but then grew to 15,000 staffers. Some of them point to the fact that price increases were relatively lower than during the First World War , and that the overall economy grew faster. Steven Pressman , for example, wrote that "when the controls were removed there was only a small increase in prices, thereby demonstrating that inflationary pressures were actively managed and not just kept temporarily under control." Galbraith said in an interview that he considered his work at

11492-426: The OPA as his major life achievement, since prices were relatively stable during WWII. The role of the OPA, however, as well as the whole legacy of the US government wartime economic stabilization measures from a long-term perspective, remains debated. Richard Parker , who earlier had written a well regarded biography of Galbraith had this to say about Galbraith's efforts during the war: [H]e had first gone to work in

11661-428: The Office of Price Administration (OPA). After the US entered the war in December 1941, OPA was tasked with rationing and price controls. The Emergency Price Control Act passed on January 30, 1942, legitimized the OPA as a separate federal agency. It merged OPA with two other agencies: Consumer Protection Division and Price Stabilization Division of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense. The council

11830-512: The Public Purpose (1973). Written in a clear and concise style, they were comprehensible to lay readers, not just economists. After his retirement from Harvard as the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus, he remained in the public spotlight by continuing to write 21 new books, as well as completing a script in 1977 for a major series on economics for PBS and BBC television— The Age of Uncertainty , broadcast in 38 countries. In addition to his books, he wrote hundreds of essays and

11999-410: The United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa —joined to establish the National Commission on the Humanities. In June 1964, the commission released a report that suggested that the emphasis placed on science endangered the study of the humanities from elementary schools through postgraduate programs. To correct the balance, it recommended "the establishment by the President and the Congress of the United States of

12168-622: The United States Senate that one of the main causes of the 1965 Kashmir war was American military aid to Pakistan. In early 1968, Galbraith endorsed Senator Eugene McCarthy , who ran against Johnson on an anti-war platform. During the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Galbraith toured the Granite State, giving pro-McCarthy speeches in churches, union halls, campuses and house parties. As McCarthy had

12337-470: The Vietnam War would ruin his presidency and that he should stop taking the advice of Rostow. Galbraith stated that Johnson had the potential to be one of the greatest presidents if only he find a way out of Vietnam, and concluded: "The people who want to invest more and more in this war have nothing to lose. They will end up working for a foundation". In 1966, when he was no longer ambassador, he told

12506-588: The Vietnam war, predicting that Mao Zedong would lose interest in Vietnam now that he had launched his Cultural Revolution. The National Security Adviser, W.W. Rostow , wrote the reply to Galbraith that was signed by Johnson, curtly declaring: "I have never doubted your talent for political craftsmanship, and I am sure you could devise a script that would appear to justify our taking an unjustifiable course in South Vietnam". On June 28, 1966, Galbraith made his final attempt to change Johnson's mind, warning that

12675-609: The Wall Street meltdown of stock prices and how markets progressively become decoupled from reality in a speculative boom. The book is also a platform for Galbraith's humor and keen insights into human behavior when wealth is threatened. It has never been out of print. In The Affluent Society (1958), which became a bestseller, Galbraith outlined his view that to become successful, post–World War II America should make large investments in items such as highways and education, using funds from general taxation. Galbraith also critiqued

12844-591: The White House's approach eclipsed them. The administration's plan, which called for the creation of two separate agencies each advised by a governing body, was the version that the Congress approved. Richard Nixon dramatically expanded funding for NEH and NEA. After the First National Conference on Long-Range Financing of Educational Television Stations in December 1964 called for a study of

13013-680: The Year. The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) conferred its 1987 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada . In 2000 he was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom . He also was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland at the fall convocation of 1999, another contribution to the impressive collection of approximately fifty academic honorary degrees bestowed upon Galbraith. In 2000, he

13182-420: The administrations of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford while others were dismantled, and funding for many were cut by Ronald Reagan . From 1963 to 1970, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line declined from 22.2 to 12.6 percent. Johnson's Great Society initiatives came during a period of rapid economic growth in the U.S., unlike the New Deal three decades earlier, which

13351-473: The administrative procedures concerning general enrollment periods. The Food Stamp Act of 1964 made the program permanent, while the Social Security Amendments of 1967 specified that at least 6% of monies for maternal and child health should be spent on family planning. By 1967, the federal government began requiring state health departments to make contraceptives available to all adults who were poor. Meal programs for low-income senior citizens began in 1965, with

13520-598: The age of 97, after a two-week stay in a hospital. He is interred at Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown, Connecticut . On September 17, 1937, Galbraith married Catherine Merriam Atwater , whom he met while she was a Radcliffe graduate student. Their marriage lasted for 68 years. The Galbraiths resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts , and had a summer home in Townshend, Vermont . They had four sons: J. Alan Galbraith

13689-425: The amount of earnings counted for contribution and benefit purposes (the contribution and benefit base), and an increase in the contribution rate schedule. The Social Security Amendments of 1967 included a 13% increase in old-age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits, with a minimum monthly benefit of $ 55 for a person retiring at or after age-65 (or receiving disability benefits), an increase from $ 35 to $ 40 in

13858-541: The assumption that continually increasing material production is a sign of economic and societal health. Because of this Galbraith is sometimes considered one of the first post-materialists . In this book, he popularized the old phrase " conventional wisdom ". Galbraith worked on the book while in Switzerland and had originally titled it Why The Poor Are Poor , but changed it to The Affluent Society at his wife's suggestion. The Affluent Society contributed (likely to

14027-429: The balance of Kennedy's New Frontier" after taking office following Kennedy's assassination. It has also been acknowledged that during his presidency, Kennedy had placed Johnson, a former Senate Majority Leader, in charge of getting his New Frontier proposals passed through Congress. Historians and political scientists were given prominent positions within the Kennedy administration . Several themes that were popular in

14196-441: The best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of the poor but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Central to its mission was the idea of " community action ", the participation of the poor in framing and administering the programs designed to help them. The War on Poverty began with a $ 1 billion appropriation in 1964 and spent another $ 2 billion in

14365-601: The best ways to bolster the economy was to cut taxes, and December 14, 1962, Kennedy stated at the Economic Club of New York that: The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system; and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. I am not talking about

14534-499: The candidate's personal and individual accomplishment as counter to a collectivist ethos . Schlesinger's work along with Richard Neustadt 's and other thinkers were key influences in the development of the New Frontier-era policies. The Kennedy Administration pushed an economic stimulus program through congress in an effort to kick-start the American economy following an economic downturn. On February 2, 1961, Kennedy sent

14703-459: The civil war in Laos, Galbraith strongly advised him not to, warning him that the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion had been caused by Kennedy taking the advice offered by the hawkish Joint Chiefs of Staff , who had assured him that the invasion could not fail and were now saying the same about the proposed intervention in Laos. Galbraith also noted that the ICC was also responsible for Laos as well as

14872-458: The convention, supporters of Johnson challenged Galbraith's right to serve as a delegate, and sought to expel him from the building. Galbraith quarreled with Johnson supporters on the convention floor as he sought to add a peace plank to the Democratic platform, which Johnson saw as an insult to himself, and ordered the delegates to reject. The Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, a Johnson supporter, had imposed such stringent security conditions that it

15041-452: The disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion . John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith OC (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith , was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s. As an economist, he leaned toward post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective. Galbraith

15210-445: The economy as it swelled to produce the weapons and materiel needed to guarantee victory against fascism. In this, he and his colleagues at the Office of Price Administration had been stunningly successful, guiding an economy that quadrupled in size in less than five years without fanning the inflation that had haunted World War I, or leaving behind an unbalanced post-war collapse of the kind that had done such grievous damage to Europe in

15379-416: The edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of the 1960s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats. ... The pioneers gave up their safety, their comfort, and sometimes their lives to build our new west. They were determined to make the new world strong and free - an example to the world. ... Some would say that those struggles are all over, that all

15548-406: The election campaign for the American presidency. During this time (September 1972) he travelled to China in his role as president of the American Economic Association (AEA) at the invitation of Mao Zedong 's communist government, together with fellow economists Wassily Leontief and James Tobin . In 1973, Galbraith published an account of his experiences in A China Passage , writing that there

15717-577: The election, and Galbraith visited several times to urge him to continue, through Galbraith later admitted "...I don't believe Eugene McCarthy's heart was ever wholly in the battle". At the chaotic and violent Democratic National Convention in August 1968 in Chicago, Galbraith attended as the floor manager for the McCarthy campaign. Amid what was later called a "police riot", as the Chicago police fought in

15886-513: The enemy, as he maintained that most of the young men who joined the Illinois National Guard had only done so to avoid being drafted to fight in Vietnam. After finishing his speech, a National Guard sergeant approached Galbraith, who froze up in fear as he believed he was about to be arrested. Instead the sergeant wanted to shake hands, saying: "Thank you, sir. That was the first nice thing anyone has said about us all week". At

16055-511: The essential points. "I defended it," he wrote, "with a maximum of arrogance and a minimum of tact."' Those findings created a controversy, with Nitze siding with others of the "Officers" managing the survey and with Pentagon officials, who declared the opposite. Later, Galbraith described the willingness of public servants and institutions to bend the truth to please the Pentagon as the "Pentagonania syndrome". In February 1946, Galbraith took

16224-604: The existing private insurance system. In 1966 welfare recipients of all ages received medical care through the Medicaid program. Medicaid was created on July 30, 1965, under Title XIX of the Social Security Act of 1965. Each state administers its own Medicaid program while the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) monitors the state-run programs and establishes requirements for service delivery, quality, funding, and eligibility standards. Under

16393-481: The federal government providing funding for "congregate meals" and "home-delivered meals." The Child Nutrition Act, passed in 1966, made improvements to nutritional assistance to children such as in the introduction of the School Breakfast Program. Johnson promoted the arts in terms of social betterment, not artistic creativity. He typically emphasized qualitative and quantitative goals, especially

16562-598: The first meeting of the major departmental leaders about kapok and its use. Galbraith also talked about rationing and especially about trickery during fuel allocation. In December 1977, he met the Palauan senator Roman Tmetuchl and eventually became an unpaid adviser to the Palau Political Status Commission. He advocated for minimal financial requirement and infrastructure projects. In 1979 he addressed Palau's legislature and participated in

16731-535: The first presidential assistant for consumer affairs. The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 required packages to carry warning labels. The Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 set standards through creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires products identify manufacturer, address, clearly mark quantity and servings. The statute also authorized

16900-539: The first session of the Eighty-Ninth Congress created the core of the Great Society. It began by enacting long-stalled legislation such as Medicare and federal aid to education and then moved into other areas, including high-speed mass transit, rental supplements, truth in packaging, environmental safety legislation, new provisions for mental health facilities, the Teacher Corps , manpower training,

17069-420: The first year of the tax cut, and economic growth averaged a rate of 4.5% from 1961 to 1968. GNP increased by 7% in 1964, 8% in 1965, and 9% in 1966. The unemployment rate fell below 5%, and by 1966 the number of families with incomes of $ 7,000 a year or more had reached 55%, compared with 22% in 1950. In 1968, when John Kenneth Galbraith published a new edition of The Affluent Society , the average income of

17238-659: The following two years. It gave rise to dozens of programs, among them the Job Corps , whose purpose was to help disadvantaged youth develop marketable skills; the Neighborhood Youth Corps , established to give poor urban youths work experience and to encourage them to stay in school; Volunteers in Service to America ( VISTA ), a domestic version of the Peace Corps , which placed concerned citizens with community-based agencies to work towards empowerment of

17407-470: The full cost of finance charges in both dollars and annual percentage rates, on installment loan and sales. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 required inspection of poultry which must meet federal standards. The Land Sales Disclosure Act of 1968 provided safeguards against fraudulent practices in the sale of land. The Radiation Safety Act of 1968 provided standards and recalls for defective electronic products. Joseph A. Califano Jr. has suggested that

17576-462: The future of mankind, the United States, and human liberty is being decided in Vietnam. It isn't; this merely builds up a difficult problem out of all proportion. It is also terrible politics". During the 1966 Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam, Galbraith wrote Johnson a letter on April 3 saying he now had "an opportunity only the God-fearing deserve and only the extremely lucky get", saying that if

17745-551: The goal of eliminating hunger, illiteracy, and unemployment from American life. The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 , which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. Federal funds were provided for special education schemes in slum areas, including help in paying for books and transport, while financial aid

17914-532: The government of Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ should fall, Johnson should use the occasion to pull all Americans out of Vietnam. On June 16, 1966, Galbraith offered to write Johnson a speech that would set out an orderly withdrawal of American forces over the next year. Galbraith advised Johnson the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in China represented an opportunity for a diplomatic settlement of

18083-421: The grounds that Kennedy was a far more electable candidate than the eccentric McCarthy, a man most people found to be too silly to be president. Schlesinger strongly urged Galbraith to support Kennedy, but Galbraith chose to continue to campaign for McCarthy, partly because McCarthy's liberalism was closer to his own politics, and partly out of a personal revulsion for Kennedy, who had only opportunistically entered

18252-503: The horizons have been explored, that all the battles have been won. That there is no longer an American frontier. ... And we stand today on the edge of a new frontier, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils. ... Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. ... I'm asking each of you to be pioneers towards that New Frontier. My call

18421-483: The incentive to invest and the supply of internal funds for investment will be increased. There will be new interest in taking risks, in increasing productivity, in creating new jobs and new products for long-term economic growth." The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women was an advisory commission established on December 14, 1961, by Kennedy to investigate questions regarding women's equality in education, in

18590-502: The influence of government and military spending had been largely neglected by most economists because they are not amenable to axiomatic descriptions. In this sense, he worked as much in political economy as in classical economics . His work included several best selling books throughout the fifties and sixties. His major contribution to the field of economics is the so-called American capitalism trilogy: The Affluent Society (1958), The New Industrial State (1967), and Economics and

18759-626: The late 1930s the U.S. Congress mandated a Smithsonian Institution art museum for the National Mall, and a design by Eliel Saarinen was unveiled in 1939, but plans were shelved during World War II. A 1966 act of the U.S. Congress established the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as part of the Smithsonian Institution with a focus on modern art, in contrast to the existing National Art Gallery . The museum

18928-570: The late stages of WWII in 1945, Galbraith was invited by Paul Nitze to serve as one of the "Officers" of the Strategic Bombing Survey , initiated by the Office of Strategic Services . It was designed to assess the results of the aerial bombardments of Nazi Germany. The survey found that German war production went up rather than down as German cities were being bombed. Henderson (2006) wrote, 'Galbraith had to fight hard to have his report published without it being rewritten to hide

19097-493: The legislation passed by Congress during the Kennedy Administration , unemployment benefits were expanded, aid was provided to cities to improve housing and transportation, funds were allocated to continue the construction of a national highway system started under Eisenhower , a water pollution control act was passed to protect the country's rivers and streams, and an agricultural act to raise farmers' incomes

19266-400: The modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment. We have done this through the 1962 investment tax credit and through the liberalization of depreciation allowances—two essential parts of our first step in tax revision which amounted to a 10 percent reduction in corporate income taxes worth $ 2.5 billion." President Kennedy went on to say he preferred tax cuts for

19435-563: The nation's capital in 1934 as a 25-year-old, fresh out of graduate school and just about to join the Harvard faculty as a young instructor. He had returned to Washington in mid-1940, after Paris fell to the Germans, initially to help ready the nation for war. Eighteen months later, after Pearl Harbor, he was then appointed to oversee the wartime economy as "price czar," charged with preventing inflation and corrupt price-gouging from devastating

19604-689: The national-origin quotas in immigration law. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and extended constitutional protections to Native Americans on reservations . Johnson recognized the benefits and costs of passing civil rights legislation. His support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act was despite his personal opinions on racial matters, as Johnson regularly articulated thoughts and disparaging language against racial minorities, including against African-Americans and Asians. Scholar and biographer Robert Caro suggested that Johnson used racially charged language to appease legislators in an effort to pass civil rights laws, including adapting how he said

19773-589: The new minimum, over $ 400 million in aid to over 1,000 distressed counties, over $ 200 million in extra welfare payments to 750,000 children and their parents, and nearly $ 800 million in extended unemployment benefits for nearly three million unemployed Americans. Under the Kennedy Administration, the most significant tax reforms since the New Deal were carried out, including a new investment tax credit. President Kennedy said one of

19942-566: The poor was increased, and there was an expansion in school milk and school lunch distribution. The most comprehensive farm legislation since 1938 was carried out, with expansions in rural electrification , soil conservation, crop insurance, farm credit, and marketing orders. In September 1961, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was established as the focal point in government for the "planning, negotiation, and execution of international disarmament and arms control agreements." Altogether,

20111-650: The poor; the Model Cities Program for urban redevelopment; Upward Bound , which assisted poor high school students entering college; legal services for the poor; and the Food Stamp Act of 1964 (which expanded the federal food stamp program). Programs included the Community Action Program , which initiated local Community Action Agencies charged with helping the poor become self-sufficient; and Project Head Start , which offered preschool education for poor children. In addition, funding

20280-530: The post- World War II American histories were apparent during the administration and also reflected in the television series Profiles in Courage . Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was an important figure in the post-war efforts to create a "moderately liberal domestic consensus". Beginning in 1961, Schlesinger served as a special assistant to Kennedy. He was a member of the liberal lobbying group Americans for Democratic Action and in 1949 he published The Vital Center ,

20449-401: The power of the arts to improve the quality of life of ordinary Americans and to reduce the inequalities between the haves and the have-nots. Karen Patricia Heath observes that, "Johnson personally was not much interested in the acquisition of knowledge, cultural or otherwise, for its own sake, nor did he have time for art appreciation or meeting with artists." In September 1965, Johnson signed

20618-529: The presidential race when it became clear that Johnson was not invincible. Galbraith had been friends with John Kennedy, but his relations with Robert were more difficult, as Galbraith found Robert too rigid, utterly convinced that he was always right. Galbraith later said that with Robert Kennedy "You were either for the cause or against it, with the Kennedys or a leper". After Kennedy was assassinated, McCarthy became so depressed that he almost dropped out of

20787-466: The private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. Kennedy specifically advocated cutting the corporate tax rate in this same speech. "Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The Government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate

20956-482: The proposed Social Security Amendments of 1964, which further increased the proposed level of Social Security benefits and added hospital insurance to the program, was passed in the Senate by a vote of 49 to 44. The following day the entire bill passed the Senate by 60 to 28 votes. Following this vote, as noted by one study, "Seeking to ensure that the health insurance proposal emerge from the conference committee as part of

21125-536: The proposed legislation through Congress. On January 4, 1965, Johnson announced much of his proposed program in his State of the Union Address . With the exception of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , the Great Society agenda was not a widely discussed issue during the 1964 presidential election campaign. Johnson won the election with 61% of the vote, and he carried all but six states. Democrats gained enough seats to control more than two-thirds of each chamber in

21294-486: The public sector was the key to economic growth: "In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures." President Kennedy told the economic club the impact he expected from tax cuts. "Profit margins will be improved and both

21463-431: The purchase of books and library materials. The Act also established Head Start , which had originally been started by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer program, as a permanent program. The Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, which was signed into law by Johnson a month after becoming president, authorized several times more college aid within a five-year period than had been appropriated under

21632-418: The report, the administration flirted with an effort to have the full House of Representatives vote to instruct the conference to yield to the Senate version. Though the health insurance provision appeared to have majority support in the House, the tactic did not, and the idea was dropped. Sure enough, the House conferees voted 3 to 2 against the Senate health provision; the Senate conferees voted 4 to 3 to accept

21801-476: The reputation of being strange and frivolous, Galbraith's support and campaigning for him was important, as McCarthy needed the endorsement of mainstream figures to give him credibility. When the New Hampshire Democratic primary was held on March 12, 1968, Johnson defeated McCarthy by only about 300 votes, a humiliation for an incumbent president with a well funded campaign running against a senator widely considered to be too eccentric to be president, and who had only

21970-419: The rich as well as the poor: Next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital. On the same evening, President Kennedy said the private sector and not

22139-496: The role of noncommercial education television in society, the Carnegie Corporation agreed to finance the work of a 15-member national commission. Its landmark report, Public Television: A Program for Action, published on January 26, 1967, popularized the phrase "public television" and assisted the legislative campaign for federal aid. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 , enacted less than 10 months later, chartered

22308-629: The segregation of public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 assured minority registration and voting. It suspended use of literacy or other voter-qualification tests that had sometimes served to keep African-Americans off voting lists and provided for federal court lawsuits to stop discriminatory poll taxes . It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by authorizing the appointment of federal voting examiners in areas that did not meet voter-participation requirements. The Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 abolished

22477-664: The special age-72 payments, an increase from $ 1,500 to $ 1,680 in the amount a person may earn in a year and still get full benefits for that year, monthly cash benefits for disabled widows and disabled dependent widowers at age 50 at reduced rates, a liberalization of the eligibility requirements for benefits for dependents and Survivors of women workers, and an alternative insured-status test for workers disabled before age 31. Additionally, new guidelines for determining eligibility for disability insurance benefits, additional non-contributory wage credits for servicemen, broadened coverage of clergy and members of religious orders who have not taken

22646-474: The streets with anti-Vietnam war protesters, Galbraith held an impromptu speech outside the Hilton Hotel before a group of demonstrators, urging them to reject violence and to have patience, while assuring them that the American system was capable of reform and change. Galbraith pointed to the armed Illinois National Guardsmen standing in the background and said that they, unlike the Chicago police, were not

22815-496: The technical analysis and mathematical modelling of neoclassical economics as being divorced from reality. Following Thorstein Veblen , he believed that economic activity could not be distilled into inviolable laws, but rather was a complex product of the cultural and political milieu in which it occurs. In particular, he posited that important factors, such as the separation between corporate ownership and management, oligopoly , and

22984-520: The three members of the ICC, try help find a diplomatic solution to the Vietnam War. Galbraith told Rapacki that he favored an agreement to neutralize the two Vietnams similar to the neutralization agreement signed for Laos in 1962. On February 5, 1963, Przemysław Ogrodziński , the Polish ambassador in New Delhi, was ordered by his superiors in Warsaw: "As far as the Vietnam matter, we are discussing it. It

23153-621: The two Vietnams, and he had Nehru's word that the Indian diplomats on the ICC were willing to serve as honest brokers for a peace deal to make Laos neutral in the Cold War. In May 1961, the Indian ICC members had been able to broker a ceasefire in Laos and Kennedy decided to go for the neutralization option instead of war. During the talks in Geneva to discuss a solution to the Lao crisis, the chief American delegate, W. Averell Harriman , discovered

23322-532: The views of Roosevelt and the labor unions, opposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). They feared the ERA would end the special privileges needed by women and accorded to women that were not given to men. In the early 1960s, full-time working women were paid on average 59 percent of the earnings of their male counterparts. In order to eliminate some forms of sex-based pay discrimination, Kennedy signed

23491-488: The word 'negro' based upon where the legislator's district was located. The most ambitious and controversial part of the Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The Kennedy Administration had been contemplating a federal effort against poverty. Johnson, who, as a teacher, had observed extreme poverty in Texas among Mexican-Americans , launched an "unconditional war on poverty" in the first months of his presidency with

23660-407: The workplace, and under the law. The commission, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt until her death in 1962, was composed of 26 members including legislators, labor union activists and philanthropists who were active in women's rights issues. The main purpose of the committee was to document and examine employment policies in place for women. The commission's final report, American Woman (also known as

23829-628: The wrong hands. The essay led Congress to create the Special Subcommittee on the Invasion of Privacy and inspired privacy advocates such as Neil Gallagher and Sam Ervin to fight what they perceived as Johnson's flagrant disregard for consumer privacy. Ervin criticized Johnson's domestic agenda as invasive and claimed that the unfiltered database of consumers' information as a sign of presidential abuse of power. Ervin warned that "The computer never forgets". Jerry M. Rosenberg dedicated

23998-481: The younger brother and right-hand man of President Diem, to discuss neutralization, a meeting that was leaked to the right-wing American columnist Joseph Alsop . At that point Kennedy lost interest in the "Maneli affair", instead deciding to back an alternative option he had been considering since August: a coup against the Ngo brothers. While in India, he helped establish one of the first computer science departments, at

24167-414: Was "no serious doubt that China is devising a highly effective economic system," "[d]issidents are brought firmly into line in China, but, one suspects, with great politeness," and "Greater Shanghai ... has a better medical service than New York,". He considered it not implausible that Chinese industrial and agricultural output was expanding annually at a rate of 10 to 11%. In 1972 he served as president of

24336-441: Was a long-time Harvard faculty member and stayed with Harvard University for half a century as a professor of economics. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published more than a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his works was a trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967). Galbraith

24505-763: Was a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm Williams & Connolly (now retired); Douglas Galbraith died in childhood of leukemia; Peter W. Galbraith has been an American diplomat who served as Ambassador to Croatia and is a commentator on American foreign policy, particularly in the Balkans and the Middle East ; James K. Galbraith is a progressive economist at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs . The Galbraiths also had ten grandchildren. A memorial plaque stands adjoining

24674-537: Was a response to the Great Depression . Kennedy proposed an across-the-board tax cut lowering the top marginal income tax rate in the United States by 20%, from 91% to 71%, which was enacted in February 1964, three months after Kennedy's assassination, under Johnson. The tax cut also significantly reduced marginal rates in the lower brackets as well as for corporations. The gross national product rose 10% in

24843-484: Was a teenager, he had adopted the name Ken, and later disliked being called John. Galbraith grew to be a very tall man, attaining a height of 6 feet 9 inches (206 cm). His father was a farmer, school teacher, president of a cooperative insurance company, and local official of the Liberal Party . His mother, a homemaker and a community activist, died when he was fourteen years old. The family farm

25012-579: Was active in Democratic Party politics , serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt , Harry S. Truman , John F. Kennedy , and Lyndon B. Johnson . He served as United States Ambassador to India under the Kennedy administration . His political activism, literary output and outspokenness brought him wide fame during his lifetime. Galbraith was one of the few to receive both the World War II Medal of Freedom (1946) and

25181-507: Was also provided for slum clearances and rebuilding city areas. In addition, the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 created jobs in one of the most impoverished regions of the country. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 provided various methods through which young people from poor homes could receive job training and higher education. The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that

25350-550: Was also trained and equipped for counterinsurgency operations. Though the U.S. Army Special Forces had been created in 1952, Kennedy visited the Fort Bragg U.S. Army Special Warfare Center in a blaze of publicity and gave his permission for the Special Forces to adopt the green beret. The other services launched their own counterinsurgency forces in 1961; the U.S. Air Force created the 1st Air Commando Group and

25519-469: Was an estimated 56 liberals and 44 conservatives in the Senate, and 224 liberals and 211 conservatives in the House. In the 89th Congress , by contrast, there were some 59 liberals and 41 conservatives in the Senate, and 267 liberals and 168 conservatives in the House. The core programs of the Great Society focused on a " war on poverty " which increased federal involvement in education, employment, and healthcare. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 created

25688-569: Was an important figure in 20th-century institutional economics , and provided an exemplary institutionalist perspective on economic power . Among his numerous writings, Galbraith cherished The New Industrial State and The Affluent Society as his two best. As for the later works, economist and Galbraith friend Mike Sharpe visited him in 2004, on which occasion Galbraith gave Sharpe a copy of what would be Galbraith's last book, The Economics of Innocent Fraud . Galbraith confided in Sharpe that "this

25857-401: Was appointed United States Ambassador to India from 1961 to 1963. His rapport with Kennedy was such that he regularly bypassed the State Department and sent his diplomatic cables directly to the president. Galbraith disliked his superior, Secretary of State Dean Rusk , writing to Kennedy that trying to communicate via Rusk was "like trying to fornicate through a mattress". In India, he became

26026-506: Was authorized by Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operations on April 1, 1967. Congress passed a variety of legislation to support improvements in transportation including The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 which provided $ 375 million for large-scale urban public or private rail projects in the form of matching funds to cities and states and created the Urban Mass Transit Administration (now

26195-649: Was awarded the Leontief Prize for his outstanding contribution to economic theory by the Global Development and Environment Institute . The library in his hometown of Dutton, Ontario was renamed the John Kenneth Galbraith Reference Library in honor of his attachment to the library and his contributions to the new building. On April 29, 2006, Galbraith died in Cambridge, Massachusetts , of natural causes at

26364-542: Was done under the strictest secrecy, but by that time, Chen had returned to Beijing. In May 1961, when Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited India, Galbraith had the duty of escorting him around various sites in India and attempting to explain some of his Texas mannerisms such as his shouts of "yee-hah!" that he made when he saw the Taj Mahal, which confused the Indians. From the embassy in New Delhi, Galbraith emerged as

26533-439: Was impossible to walk across the convention hall without jostling somebody else, which added to the tension of the convention as pro-war and anti-war Democrats fiercely argued about the platform, all of which was captured live on national television. Adding to the tension were televisions on the convention floor that showed what was happening outside, as the Chicago police attacked and beat anti-war demonstrators. On Daley's orders,

26702-565: Was in major danger from 20,000 lightly armed Viet Cong guerrillas. Galbraith proceeded to do a statistical comparison, under he which calculated that in proportional terms, Diem had an army that was approximately the ratio to the population that was equivalent to that of the U.S Army to the American people after the Civil War, while the Viet Cong had a ratio equivalent to that of the Sioux vs

26871-680: Was located on Thomson Line. Both of his parents were supporters of the United Farmers of Ontario in the 1920s. His early years were spent at a one-room school which is still standing, on 9468 Willey Road, in Iona Station. Later, he went to Dutton High School and St. Thomas High School. In 1931, Galbraith graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the Ontario Agricultural College , which

27040-675: Was made law. A significant amount of anti-poverty legislation was passed by Congress, including increases in social security benefits and in the minimum wage, several housing bills, and aid to economically distressed areas. A few antirecession public works packages, together with a number of measures designed to assist farmers, were introduced. Major expansions and improvements were made in Social Security (including retirement at 62 for men), hospital construction, library services, family farm assistance and reclamation. Food stamps for low-income Americans were reintroduced, food distribution to

27209-416: Was much criticized by the business community. In response, OPA mobilized the public on behalf of the new guidelines and said that it reduced the options for those who were seeking higher rents or prices. OPA had its own Enforcement Division, which documented the increase of violations: a quarter million in 1943 and more than 300,000 during the next year. Historians and economists differ over the assessment of

27378-413: Was primarily federally funded, although New York financier Joseph Hirshhorn later contributed $ 1 million toward building construction, which began in 1969. The Hirshhorn opened in 1974. Transportation initiatives started during President Johnson's term in office included the consolidation of transportation agencies into a cabinet-level position under the Department of Transportation . The department

27547-457: Was provided for the establishment of community health centers to expand access to health care, while major amendments were made to Social Security in 1965 and 1967 which significantly increased benefits, expanded coverage, and established new programs to combat poverty and raise living standards. In addition, average AFDC payments were 35% higher in 1968 than in 1960, but remained insufficient and uneven. The most important educational component of

27716-400: Was published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics . After graduation in 1934, he started to work as an instructor at Harvard University . Galbraith taught intermittently at Harvard in the period 1934 to 1939. From 1939 to 1940, he taught at Princeton University . In 1937, he became a citizen of the United States and was no longer a British subject . In the same year, he took

27885-712: Was raised from $ 1,000 to $ 2,500, and the aggregate limit was raised from $ 5,000 to $ 10,000. The program was extended to include geography, history, reading, English, and civics, and guidance and counseling programs were extended to elementary and public junior high schools. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 offered federal aid to local school districts in assisting them to address the needs of children with limited English-speaking ability until it expired in 2002. The Great Society programs also provided support for postgraduate clinical training for both nurses and physicians committed to work with disadvantaged patients in rural and urban health clinics. On August 31, 1964, an amendment to

28054-399: Was received with interest. Deliberations will continue. As for now, we suggest inviting Galbraith to lunch and sounding [him] out, without committing ourselves, in order for him to see that we are looking into this matter". Although Galbraith had acted on his own in approaching Rapacki, he had some support from Kennedy, who told him "to pursue the subject immediately." This was the origin of

28223-442: Was referred to as the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC), and was created on May 29, 1940. NDAC emphasized voluntary and advisory methods in keeping prices low. Leon Henderson , the NDAC commissioner for price stabilization, became the administrator of OPACS and of OPA in 1941–1942. He oversaw a mandatory and vigorous price regulation that started in May 1942 after OPA introduced the General Maximum Price Regulation (GMPR). It

28392-547: Was then an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto . He majored in animal husbandry. He was awarded a Giannini Scholarship in Agricultural Economics (receiving $ 60 per month) that allowed him to travel to Berkeley, California, where he received masters and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in agricultural economics from the University of California, Berkeley . Galbraith was taught economics by Professor George Martin Peterson, and together they wrote an economics paper titled "The Concept of Marginal Land" in 1932 that

28561-439: Was to prevent his program from being derailed by public criticism of proposals that had not yet been reviewed. The average task force had five to seven members and generally was composed of governmental experts and academics. After the task force reports were submitted to the White House, Moyers began a second round of review. The recommendations were circulated among the agencies concerned, and strategies were developed for getting

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