Affluent Society- John Kenneth Galbraith Audiobook and Book

The Affluent Society



Galbraith's classic on the "economics of abundance" is, in the words of the New York Times, "a compelling challenge to conventional thought." With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Galbraith cuts to the heart of what economic security means (and doesn't mean) in today's world and lays bare the hazards of individual and societal complacence about economic inequity. While "affluent society" and "conventional wisdom" (first widely used in this book) have entered the vernacular, the message of the book has not been so widely embraced — reason enough to rediscover The Affluent Society.



Review:

"One of the most gifted writers alive...tumbling the tribal Gods of both left and right." Boston Globe



Review:

"With his customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Galbraith cuts to the heart of what economic security means (and doesn't mean) in today's world and lays bare the hazards of complacency about economic inequity."



His popularization of (if not the ‘invention’ of) the term Conventional Wisdom is an important examination of power dynamics. Conventional Wisdom is a term used to describe ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public or by experts in a field. The term implies that the ideas or explanations, though widely held, are unexamined and, hence, are inevitably reevaluated, usually negatively, upon further examination or as events unfold.



Conventional wisdom has it that John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society spawned the neoliberalism we see in Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and other world leaders. This, like much conventional wisdom, is far off target. The economist's prose, lofty but still easily manageable, laid down the gauntlet for the post-cold war class struggle that was still far in the future in 1958. Galbraith saw the widening gap between the richest and the poorest as an emergent threat to economic stability, and proposed significant investment in parks, transportation, education, and other public amenities--what we now call infrastructure--to ameliorate these differences and postpone depression and revolution indefinitely. Widely criticized by conservatives and libertarians wary of public expenditures or increased government influence, Galbraith still influences liberal and neoliberal thinking. His work remains fresh and true even today. Four years before Silent Spring, he wrote about the consumerist blight that threatened our wild lands equally as much as our cities; his hoped-for increase in environmental awareness has grown significantly in recent years. Whether you support the political implementations of his views, experiencing his writing is important to put those views in context. More than this, though, it is an honest pleasure to read such original ideas so well expressed.









Comments and Contents

For those of you that have appreciate my previous postings..... this one was real work. It is well worth the 'read' and you will avoid the concerns expressed by Lyndon Johnson (who once remarked to John Kenneth Galbraith: "Did y'ever think, Ken, that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.")



This book is hot, and has been influential, though the backlash involving the rhetoric of its adoption in less than half measures could be credibly stated as worse than it having been adopted at all.







This posting contains:



1] The unabridged audiobook, read by 'Mike' (details below).

2] The book in Word format.







This item contains the following content:



1] The unabridged audiobook as 45 MP3 files. Introduction, 24 Chapters and an afterward.

2] The book as 45 files in Word format corresponding to the audiobook files.







Note: this book is read by a synthesized voice (AT&T Mike); however, I am a very experienced audiobook listener and I have created the MP3 files as well as all of the Microsoft Word source files. I used textspeaker 3.0, converted the Word files to WAV files and then converted them to MP3. After much testing I have determined that this permits a much better quality than simply allowing textspeaker to convert the files directly to MP3. I have created the Microsoft Word files (and therefore the audio files) with some care by placing periods after all titles and sections for natural pauses, as well as the elimination of the title contents pages and any citations that would not normally be found in an audio book, and I have included footnotes that would generally be included within an audiobook. In case you are interested it took approximately half as long, perhaps more, to create this audiobook as it would have taken to simply read the book, but I was hoping to share my work with a larger community as well as to enable myself to listen to the book again at a later date. Often there are many times I listen to audio books and then wish to search for or relisten to a particular item and the inclusion of the PDF as well as the Word file should enable you to search for content electronically which then makes searching for that portion of the audio book considerably more easy.





About Buoy releases:





1] Releases will generally be totally unavailable commercially (such as Recorded Books limited editions for libraries rental customers) They may also be books on cassette which are now not on CD or not on Audible. Phenomenal releases that are out of print on CD, or are more than 5-7 years old may also be posted.



2] I am a very experienced audio book listener and I sometimes create the MP3 files from electronic text via TextSpeaker 3.0, and details follow:



I currently use TextSpeaker 3.0, which converts Word files to WAV files, and then they are converted to MP3 format. After much testing I have determined that this permits a much better quality than simply allowing TextSpeaker to convert the files directly to MP3. I create the Microsoft Word files (and therefore the audio files) with some care by placing periods after all titles and sections for natural pauses, as well as the elimination of the title contents pages and any citations that would not normally be found in an audio book, and I have included footnotes that would generally be included within an audiobook.



3] Interesting content and popular content and mainstream content intersect, but I will rarely if ever post normal or run-of-the-mill mainstream content. Who has time to waste on such doggerel?