The Economics of Innocent Fraud - Softcover

Galbraith, John Kenneth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141045132 ISBN 13: 9780141045139

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

First published in 2004, John Kenneth Galbraith's The Economics of Innocent Fraud is an extraordinarily prescient analysis of capitalism that has even greater power and relevance for our times.

In this vigorous polemic John Kenneth Galbraith, a lifelong critic of unbridled corporate power, distils years of expertise to deliver a scathing attack on the modern financial system.

Sounding the alarm on the gap between 'conventional wisdom' - a phrase he coined - and reality, Galbraith warns that the private sector and the public realm are becoming increasingly intertwined. He shows how politics and the media have colluded in the myth of a benign market system, accepting obscene pay gaps and unrestrained self-enrichment - ultimately meaning that we have come to condone legal, legitimate, 'innocent' fraud.

'An almost indecently pleasurable read'
  The Times

'I agree with Galbraith. The bonus culture is skim, bribery, corporate theft'
  Simon Jenkins, Guardian

'The most stylish writer on economics of the past half-century ... it will please those who appreciate Galbraith's dry wit and laconic iconoclasm'
  Financial Times

'America's great liberal economist, the intellectual heir to John Maynard Keynes'
  Economist

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) was a Canadian-American economist. A Keynesian and an institutionalist, Galbraith was a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and progressivism. Galbraith was the author of 30 books, including The Economics of Innocent Fraud, The Great Crash: 1929, and A History of Economics. He was awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Oxford, the University of Paris and Moscow University.

About this title

About the Author:

John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and progressivism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 1970s and he filled the role of public intellectual in this period on matters of economics.

Galbraith was a prolific author who produced four dozen books and over a thousand articles on various subjects. Among his most famous works was a popular trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967). He taught at Harvard University for many years. Galbraith was active in politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson; and among other roles served as United States Ambassador to India under Kennedy.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141045132
• ISBN 13: 9780141045139
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80