Professor Galbraith and American Capitalism

Abstract

The intellectual defence of capitalism has long ceased to be confined to the simple celebration of its virtues; or even to the argument that, whatever might be said against it, it was still a much better system, on economic, social and political grounds, than any conceivable alternative to it. Such arguments are of course still extensively used. But they belong to an older school of apologetics; and for some considerable time now, many people, who see themselves as part of the "democratic left", as liberal and even radical critics of the existing social order, and as anything but its apologists, have argued that the question of alternatives to capitalism had been rendered obsolete by the internal developments of the system itself; capitalism, the argument goes, has been so thoroughly transformed in the last few decades that the need to abolish it has conveniently disappeared. The job, for all practical purposes, has been done by the "logic of industrialization", which is well on the way to erasing all meaningful differences between "industrial systems", whatever misleading labels they may choose to pin upon themselves. Dinosaur socialists will, no doubt, continue to peddle their unwanted ideological wares; for their part, serious men with a bent for reform will address themselves to the real problems of what Mr. Crosland long ago called "post-capitalist" societies.