John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith in 1982
Born	October 15, 1908 Iona Station, Ontario, Canada
Died	April 29, 2006(2006-04-29) (aged 97) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Institution	Harvard University Princeton University University of California, Berkeley
School or tradition	Institutional economics
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley University of Toronto
Influences	Thorstein Veblen, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Michał Kalecki, Gardiner Means, Adolf A. Berle
Influenced	Stephany Griffith-Jones, Robert Heilbroner, Lars Pålsson Syll, Paul A. Baran, James K. Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, Yanis Varoufakis, Modern Money Theory (L. Randall Wray, Warren Mosler, Bill Mitchell, Stephanie Bell Kelton)
Contributions	Countervailing power, Technostructure, Conventional wisdom
Awards	Lomonosov Gold Medal (1993) Officer of the Order of Canada (1997) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000)

John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, OC (/ɡælˈbreɪθ/ gal-BRAYTH, October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006) was a Canadian (and later American) economist, public official, and diplomat, and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s, during which time Galbraith fulfilled the role of public intellectual. As an economist, he leaned toward Post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective.

Galbraith was a long-time Harvard faculty member and stayed with Harvard University for half a century as a professor of economics. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published more than a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his most famous works was a popular trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967).

Galbraith was active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as United States Ambassador to India under the Kennedy administration. His political activism, literary output and outspokenness made him, arguably, "the best-known economist in the world" during his lifetime. Galbraith was one of few recipients both of the Medal of Freedom (1946) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000) for his public service and contribution to science. The government of France made him a Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur.