ECONOMICS AND THE PUBLIC PURPOSE
by JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
334 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $10.
John Kenneth Galbraith has become that rarest of social criticsa reformer whose new ideas are cheerfully anticipated even by people whose worldly holdings may be swept away if his programs are put into practice. In part that is because Galbraith has managed to write with wit and style about the 'dismal science ' of economics. As the eternal gadfly of American capitalism, he has also played a considerable role in popularizing once radical economic theory The Affluent Society (1958) predicted an age of private wealth and public...