Kevin Mattson, Ohio University
"Towards a Social Theory of Advanced Capitalism: John Kenneth Galbraith
and the Nuances of Modern Liberalism"

This paper/presentation will reexamine the social and political thought of America's foremost post-war economist. I will examine Galbraith's conception of the public interest and countervailing power as found in his classic works of the 1950s. This paper will approach Galbraith as a political economist but also as a cultural and social theorist (in the vein of Smith, Marx, and Veblen). It will also examine Galbraith's relation to post-war American liberalism more broadly construed and see if there is something salvageable for current economic, social, and cultural questions. This paper/presentation is part of a larger project that will reexamine the intellectual history of American liberalism during the 20th century a project in its very first stages.

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