Who saw John Kenneth Galbraith on the Newshour last night?

Very inspiring.


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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june05/galbraith_5-24.html

PAUL SOLMAN: I'd ask Richard Parker one last question. Did he think Galbraith himself might be up for a short visit? An hour later at the Cambridge house the Galbraiths have occupied for the past half-century, Parker and I climbed to the bedroom. Wife Kitty, herself 92, and a nurse were watching over him. Galbraith was, well, matter-of-fact.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: Sit down.

PAUL SOLMAN: I promised to be brief, so I got right to the point. Hasn't Galbraith's economic vision been eclipsed? Beginning with the Reagan administration and certainly now in the second Bush administration?

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: No question it's been eclipsed by the people who have the money. There's no question that this is a time when corporations have taken over the basic process of governing.

PAUL SOLMAN: Will the pendulum swing back, do you suppose?

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: Whether in my lifetime or not, it could require an exceedingly optimistic answer. But there is a certain alert concern on these matters running through the whole structure of the United States and the other democracies, is something that has operated up until now, and I strongly expect it to operate in the future.

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I watched with great interest to a brilliant man who has lived through many strange times and knows of what he speaks.

And his last remark was rather cryptic, don't you think?

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."


John Kenneth Galbraith