He may not have been the greatest economist but he could write

John Kenneth Galbraith was often wrong on matters of political economy. Dead wrong about goverment power. But unlike most economists, Galbraith, shunning the high mathemathical techiques of academia, could write with both style and conviction. He cultivated his audience and was recognized as a worthy opponent. How else could he write and successfully sell over 30 books? That style wasn't enough for the Kennedy Administration which kept Galbraith so far away from economic policy he was sent to India as ambassador. Would JFK's fabled tax cuts every materialized with JKG at the helm of the council of economic advisors? I'm not sure. But Galbraith left his mark.

JKG passed away on April 29. His long time friend and intellectuall sparring partner, William F. Buckley offering his obituary weeps that his elegant friend is gone. But what of the man's economic ideas?

Clive Crook takes apart liberalism most acclaimed economic popularizer.

Galbraith, despite the Harvard professorship, was never really an economist in the ordinary sense in the first place. In one of countless well-turned pronouncements, he said, "Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists." He disdained the scientific pretensions and formal apparatus of modern economics -- all that math and numbers-crunching -- believing that it missed the point. This view did not spring from mastery of the techniques: Galbraith disdained them from the utset, which saved time.

Friedman, in contrast, devoted his career to grinding out top-quality scholarly work, while publishing the occasional best-seller as a sideline. He too was no math whiz, but he was painstakingly scientific in his methods (when engaged in scholarly research) and devoted to data. All that was rather beneath Galbraith. Brilliant, yes; productive, certainly. But he was a bureaucrat, a diplomat, a political pundit, and a popular economics writer of commanding presence more than a serious economic thinker, let alone a great one.

Good piece.

Meanwhile, William Anderson of the Von Mises Institute is far less charitable. Here Camelot's Arthur Schlesinger Jr. sticks up for his friend. Who says we aren't fair and balanced?