NONFICTION - April 28, 1996

THE GOOD SOCIETY: The Human Agenda by John Kenneth Galbraith (Houghton Mifflin: $21.95; 152 pp.). How does John Kenneth Galbraith, one of our greatest economists and humanists of the century, define the “good society”? It is a place wherein “every member, regardless of gender, race or ethnic origin, should have access to a rewarding life.” Come in off the street, take a seat in the back row and listen to this gentle essayist and lecturer deliver a speech on how to achieve that goal in this country. After, argue it out with a few friends in a local pub. “Among the great nations of the world,” writes Galbraith in his first sentence, “none is more given to introspection than the United States.” If this is true, and if you have lost the ability to even come in off the street because the magisterial perspective that allows this kind of discussion flows from a life of contemplation that you cannot, at least currently, indulge in, then let this book serve as an antidote to the evening news and the campaign trail. It is no longer possible to ignore, argues Galbraith, the needs of the poor. The private economy, with or without the “contract with America” (which Galbraith brilliantly likens to the “Communist Manifesto”), depends on an increasingly wide range of public activities to help it function effectively: city infrastructures for industry, educated employees for business, etc. But here’s the tripwire: “Only when all vote . . . will the good society achieve its urgent goals.” Backing down considerably from his original confidence, Galbraith advocates a coalition of the concerned and compassionate and the poor outside the political system. With that, he closes the book and sends us back out on the streets, but the neighborhood is grim and there’s no pub in sight.