Book Reviews › Money › The Affluent Society
Honest review · Money
The Affluent Society
by John Kenneth Galbraith
Galbraith's 1958 argument that private opulence sits beside public squalor, and that advertising manufactures wants. Witty and still provoking.
Read it if…
you want the classic critique of consumer society.
See the book →
Skip it if…
you want Hayek's side.
Try instead: The Great Crash 1929 →
Three things you will actually use
- Wants are manufactured.
- Public goods matter.
- Question conventional wisdom, his phrase.
Do this first
Read the chapter on the dependence effect.
Our verdict
Galbraith on affluence.
See the book →
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