As relevant today as when it was first published over forty years ago, The Affluent Society was recently named one of the New York Public Library’s ‘Books of the Twentieth Century’. Wittily, gracefully, devastatingly, Professor Galbraith attacks some of our most cherished economic myths. Why worship work and productivity if many of the goods we produce are superfluous

artificial ‘needs’ created by high-pressure advertising? Why begrudge expenditure on vital public works while ignoring waste and extravagance in the private sector of the economy? Classical economics was born in a harsh world of mass poverty, and has left us with a set of preconceptions ill-adapted to the realities of our own richer age. And so, too often, ‘the bland lead the bland’. Our unfamiliar problems need a new approach, and the reception given to this famous book has shown the value of its fresh, lively ideas.