Word: equilibrium
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Unfortunately, the solutions Galbraith generates from his new theory are not as convincing as his critique of old theories. He argues the only way to break the "equilibrium of poverty" accommodation produces is to aid those few people who are the least placid about their poverty, the least willing to accommodate. Facilitating escape from poverty is just as crucial to Galbraith as breaking accommodation. Education is the best way to show people alternatives to their miserable lives, and it also gives them tools needed when they manage to escape poverty. But without a means to escape, the desire...
What the U.S. failed to recognize, Galbraith says, is the true nature of the "equilibrium of poverty." He claimed that in the U.S., income can be increased simply by a little macroeconomic maneuvering, and most of the time each individual can boost his own economic status if he so wishes. In places like India, however, Malthusian forces keep the poor poor. Growing population and the overwhelming pressure of current needs swamp small increases in national product. The models of economic growth taught to eager American college students do not apply to a country with hordes of people on the edge...
Perhaps Galbraith never quite makes it clear who he talks about. His examples mention China, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and others, but he never explains why poverty in the U.S. is so different. Although most of the U.S. is affluent, Galbraith's equilibrium of poverty--accommodation theory--would seem to apply just as well to rural Appalachia or to a ghetto housing project where longstanding pressures operate to destroy aspirations. But though his analysis falls short in places, Galbraith has shed new light on the basic problem of poverty in the world. His work on causes should force a long overdue...
...nation now seems to be achieving some new psychological equilibrium about families and children. The wild swoop from the excessively domestic '50s to the fierce social unbucklings of the '60s and early '70s left confusion and wreckage. A lot of menacing nonsense got flashed around and mingled with difficult truths. Generations bared their teeth at one another...
...time at our training camp at Wake Forest when I kept hearing this banging. I walked over to where I heard it and saw Doug banging his head against the wall. 'What are you doing?' I asked him, and he just said, 'I'm trying to get my equilibrium back...