J K Galbraith Speech The Affluent Society

Speech Microphone

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society
The J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society featured is in the form of extracts, passages or lines from the J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society. The J K Galbraith Speech demonstrates good oratory skills, a great public speaker with the ability to use clear words and text. Speech Example Topic / Subject Type: Informative, Motivational Speech.

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society
J.K.Galbraith - The Affluent Society
Harvard University
19 August 1999

It is now forty years and something more since I surveyed the scene in the economically advanced countries, especially the United States, and wrote "The Affluent Society." The book had a satisfying reception, and I'm here asked as to its latter-day relevance. That should not be asked of any author, but the mistake having been made, I happily respond. The central argument in the book was that in the economically advanced countries, and especially in the United States, there has been a highly uneven rate of social development. Privately produced goods and services for use and consumption are abundantly available.

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society

Famous Short Speeches

 

So available are they, indeed, that a large and talented expenditure on advertising and salesmanship is needed to persuade people to want what is produced. Consumer sovereignty, once governed by the need for food and shelter, is now the highly contrived consumption of an infinite variety of goods and services.

That, however, is in what has come to be called the private sector. There is no such abundance in the services available from the state. Social services, health care, education --especially education --public housing for the needful, even food, along with action to protect life and the environment, are all in short supply. Damage to the environment is the most visible result of this abundant production of goods and services. In a passage that was much quoted, and which I thought myself at the time was perhaps too extravagant, I told of the family that took its modern, highly styled, tail-finned automobile out for a holiday. They went through streets and countryside made hideous by commercial activity and commercial art. They spent their night in a public park replete with refuse and disorder and dined on delicately packaged food from an expensive portable refrigerator.

So it seemed forty years ago; in the time that has since elapsed the contrast between needed public services and affluent public consumption has become much greater. Every day the press, radio and television proclaim the abundant production of goods and the need for more money for education, public works and the desolate condition of the poor in the great cities. Clearly affluence in the advanced countries is still a highly unequal thing.

All this, were I writing now, I would still emphasize. I would especially stress the continuing unhappy position of the poor. This, if anything, is more evident than it was forty years ago. Then in the United States it was the problem of southern plantation agriculture and the hills and hollows of the rural Appalachian Plateau. Now it is the highly visible problem of the great metropolis.

There is another contrast. Were I writing now, I would give emphasis to the depressing difference in well-being as between the affluent world and the less fortunate countries --mainly the post-colonial world. The rich countries have their rich and poor. The world has its rich and poor nations. When I wrote "The Affluent Society," I was becoming more strongly aware of this difference on the world scene and had started at Harvard one of the first courses on the problems in the poor countries. I went on to spend a part of my life in India, one of the most diversely interesting of the post-colonial lands. There has been a developing concern with these problems; alas, the progress has not kept pace with the rhetoric.

The problem is not economics; it goes back to a far deeper part of human nature. As people become fortunate in their personal well-being, and as countries become similarly fortunate, there is a common tendency to ignore the poor. Or to develop some rationalization for the good fortune of the fortunate. Responsibility is assigned to the poor themselves. Given their personal disposition and moral tone, they are meant to be poor. Poverty is both inevitable and in some measure deserved. The fortunate individuals and fortunate countries enjoy their well-being without the burden of conscience, without a troublesome sense of responsibility. This is something I did not recognize writing forty years ago; it is a habit of mind to which I would now attribute major responsibility.

This is not, of course, the full story. After World War II decolonization, a greatly civilized and admirable step, nonetheless left a number of countries without effective self-government. Nothing is so important for economic development and the human condition as stable, reliable, competent and honest government. This in important parts of the world is still lacking. Nothing is so accepted in our times as respect for sovereignty; nothing, on occasion, so protects disorder, poverty and hardship. Here I'm not suggesting an independent role for any one country and certainly not for the United States. I do believe we need a much stronger role for international action, including, needless to say, the United Nations. We need to have a much larger sense of common responsibility for those suffering from the weakness, corruption, disorder and the cruelty of bad government or none at all. Sovereignty, though it has something close to religious status in modern political thought, must not protect human despair. This may not be a popular point; popularity is not always a test of needed intelligence. So I take leave of my work of forty years ago. I am not entirely dissatisfied with it but I do not exaggerate its role. Books may be of some service to human understanding and action in their time. There remains always the possibility, even the probability, that they do more for the self-esteem of the author than for the fate of the world.

J.K.Galbraith

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society

  • Great example of the famous J K Galbraith Speech
  • Example and Sample of Free text of this J K Galbraith Speech
  • Free Text and transcript to the J K Galbraith Speech
  • Good, famous example of public speaking in this J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society
  • Persuasive, Informative and Interesting J K Galbraith Speech
  • Free, Short J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society, a great public speaker
  • Free Text to famous and interesting J K Galbraith Speech
  • Great Speaker, Famous transcript and text of the J K Galbraith Speech
  • J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society
The text featured is in the form of extracts, passages or lines from the J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society, an example of a great speaker. This famous J K Galbraith Speech is a great example of a clear address using excellent text to persuade and inspire the audience, a natural leader, speaker and motivator. Use this famous transcript of the J K Galbraith Speech as an example of a great speaker, oration and clear dialogue. This famous transcript of the J K Galbraith Speech originated from a historical manuscript. A Quote or extract from the J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society, provides an illustration of, or allusion to, the famous events the era and the work of a great speaker. This famous J K Galbraith Speech is famed for its great powers of verbal communication making good use of the words and language to illustrate the subject all critical requirements of a great speaker. Whether this address can be described in the category of powerful, persuasive, motivational or inspirational the excellent powers of oration which are used make it one of the most famous speeches from a great speaker.

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society
Speech Example Topic / Subject Type: Informative, Motivational Speech Topic

Example / Sample Speech Definitions
Read through the above speech example / sample in order to categorise, or define, what type of speech this is. One speech can fall into several subject or topic types. A definition for each type of speech is as follows:

  • Persuasive Speech:
    A persuasive speech is written to persuade, or convince the listeners, of the validity of the speaker's argument.

  • Inspiring / Inspirational speech:
    An Inspirational / Inspiring speech is written to persuade, or convince the listeners, that they can succeed.

  • Motivating / Motivational speech:
    A Motivating / Motivational speech is written to persuade, or convince the audience, to take action to improve.

  • Informative speech:
    An Informative speech provides interesting and useful information to increase the knowledge of the audience.

  • Tribute speech:
    A Tribute speech provides interesting and useful information, an expression of esteem, to show thanks or respect and increase the knowledge of the audience on the subject.

  • Acceptance speech:
    An Acceptance speech provides an expression of gratitude for some form of award which has been given on the basis of merit or excellence.

J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society

© 2017 Siteseen Ltd.Cookies PolicyBy Linda AlchinPrivacy Statement
J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Famous Speech - Great Speaker - Speech - Famous - Free - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Famous Text - Words - Text - Persuasive - Informative - Topic - Topics - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Famous Speech - Great Speaker - Demonstration - Funny - Example - Sample - Famuos - Interesting - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Great Speaker - Outline - Outlines - Good - Great - Inspiring - Example - Sample - Scrapbooking - Ceremonial - Motivational – Inspiring - Speach - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Great Speaker - Famous - Free - Text - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Famous - Famous - Free - Words - Text - Persuasive - Informative - Topic - Topics - Famous - Great Speaker - Demonstration - Funny - Example - Sample - Speech - Famous - Free - Text - Famuos - Interesting - Outline - Famous - Outlines - Good - Great - Inspiring - Example - Sample - Famous - Great Speaker - Ceremonial - Motivational – Inspiring - Speach - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Speach - Great Speaker - Famous Speach - J K Galbraith Speech - The Affluent Society - Written By Linda Alchin