Sunday, April 30, 2006
R.I.P. John Kenneth Galbraith
There are some incidents from when you're very young that stick with you the rest of your life. When I was in school in Cochin, I had this one memorable encounter with an extremely tall man who, we were told, used to be the U.S. ambassador to India. Obviously I had no clue who this man was and the only thing that struck me was how tall he was; he was quite easily the tallest person I had ever seen in person. But then he started speaking and his warmth for India and his ability to convey complicated ideas in simple terms began to really shine through. It was one of the first times I had heard what could be described an economics/history oriented lecture. Since that day, I've been hooked to John Kenneth Galbraith, reading with great amusement episodes from his life, like the time the Kerala government guest house in Cochin had to order a special bed for the man to sleep in, given his height.
And the more I read of his work, the more I was hooked, despite the occasional disagreement with his points of view, especially when it made the government the solution to a range of problems. I disagreed because I could see the reality in India did not correspond with Galbraith's hypothesis about government spending etc. Nonetheless, I could not ask for a better introduction to liberal economics (in the American sense). This great man, and a tremendous friend of India, died on Saturday in Cambridge, MA, making him the second intellectual giant (after Jane Jacobs) the world has lost in the space of a week. The New York Times and the Washington Post are carrying excellent profiles of the very tall man I remember so well from my school days.
And the more I read of his work, the more I was hooked, despite the occasional disagreement with his points of view, especially when it made the government the solution to a range of problems. I disagreed because I could see the reality in India did not correspond with Galbraith's hypothesis about government spending etc. Nonetheless, I could not ask for a better introduction to liberal economics (in the American sense). This great man, and a tremendous friend of India, died on Saturday in Cambridge, MA, making him the second intellectual giant (after Jane Jacobs) the world has lost in the space of a week. The New York Times and the Washington Post are carrying excellent profiles of the very tall man I remember so well from my school days.
