Word: galbraith
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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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...
Migration is Galbraith's most controversial solution to poverty. He brushes aside the possibility that those the least willing to tolerate poverty are probably the ones who through their energy and motivation are the most able to help their poverty-stricken brethren. Ireland is the classic case where the able and strong abandoned a country, leaving the weak and infirm behind. True, Ireland is better off now than during the potato famines, but to attribute this to migration requires ridiculously long-run analysis. Similarly Galbraith plays down the racial hatred migrants have inspired and the dreadful standard of living--hardly...
...GALBRAITH is quick to say that migration is not the only answer; any attack on poverty must be fought on several fronts. But he is very vague about ways to escape to the industrial sectors of a nation. He is convinced that urban poverty is less intractable than rural poverty although he does not quite say why. His best points about industrialization reduce to the platitudes that developed countries of all political leanings have given each other the wrong advice about ways to attract industry, and that more research is needed to determine the correct advice...
...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...