John Kenneth Galbraith: Cultural Theorist of Consumption and Power

Abstract

This article counters the claim that John Kenneth Galbraith’s work was descriptive in character. Instead, the case is made that Galbraith’s work was theoretical in nature. Galbraith was primarily a cultural theorist rather than the deductive formalist type theorist typical in mainstream economics. In particular, it is shown that Galbraith’s “revised sequence” is part of his substantial contribution to the theory of consumption. Additionally, his analyses of economic power are not merely descriptive but instead constitute a cultural theory of economic power.