John Kenneth Galbraith--author of The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State, novelist and John Kennedy's Ambassador to India--has been associated with liberal economic policies longer than most liberal politicians. Because he isn't shuttling to Washington very often these days, Warren Kalbacker met with him at his mansion on Harvard's faculty row. Kalbacker reports: "This guy knows about the affluent society from primary sources. He possesses an enormous and good-natured self-confidence that is not entirely attributable to his great height. He also serves a good sherry."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: As a prominent economist, you're often asked for your opinions. Is it easy for you to snow most journalists?

John Kenneth Galbraith: There's no question that an economist can do a great snow job on a journalist. This comes from journalists' assuming that economists have knowledge they don't. So they'll accept the forecasts of economists even when there's no reason to believe these predictions bear any relation to what will happen.

Economics is something like religion: Nobody knows what will happen in the hereafter. So people turn to economists as they would to a priestly council. A great many private economists give their estimate of the future simply because they're asked. Forecasts by economists in public office are always what the Administration needs: less inflation, more employment, an expanding economy.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Is crystal-ball gazing the biggest pitfall of your profession?

John Kenneth Galbraith: The biggest pitfall is responding to establishment applause. Economists are attracted to Washington by the big oak desks and the thoughtfully wasted space. That's not in the best tradition of any subject or science. Similarly, economists who work for banks or corporations are very much under the influence of the people of those enterprises. They tell them what they want to hear.

I read a few months ago of an economist who left the Ford Motor Company because he didn't agree with proposals to restrict imports of automobiles. Everyone was surprised that he would show that measure of integrity. An economist who responds to public applause or who becomes an organization man is not being faithful to his profession.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: What advice would you give to economists who sit behind those big oak desks or collect their pay checks from business organizations?

John Kenneth Galbraith: We all surrender some part of our personality to organization. Even the Harvard professor is in some degree subordinate to the organizational pressures of the university. Of course, the discipline is much greater for a member of a corporation. Still greater for somebody in the State Department.

The important thing is not so much the organizational pressures as the need to be aware of them. What's devastating is the number of people who find organization ideas superior to their own. They surrender and they enjoy it.

When I was appointed Ambassador to India by President Kennedy, John Steinbeck wrote me a letter, urging me not to accept. He argued that although I wouldn't find myself pressed to defend the State Department's line, I might actually enjoy doing so, because it saves one from thinking for oneself. Tolstoy says somewhere that the greatest pleasure of joining a regiment is that it takes over all life from the individual.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: With a conservative in the White House and "supply-side" economists buying tickets to Washington, isn't this a lonely time to be a liberal?

John Kenneth Galbraith: Certainly not. My generally liberal views are the conventional wisdom of the time. That's a phrase that I was responsible for coining and therefore I use with some freedom. I have never doubted that my answers were right. I wouldn't offer them otherwise.

The great misfortune for Arthur Laffer and supply-side economics is that he has an idea that is being tried. If an economist has an idea that won't work, nothing can be worse than having it tried.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: : Voters in many states have moved to limit the taxing powers of government and its public services. Can you offer a better proposition?

John Kenneth Galbraith: Yes. It is not possible to run a modern economy without some kind of price and income policy. In the past few years, we have been preventing inflation by the use of monetary and fiscal policy. This creates unemployment during times of recession. I would substitute income and price restraints that allow you to run the economy much closer to full employment. Most economists are tied to textbooks that emphasize the free market, and therefore a very large part of the profession is unwilling to accept the idea of direct intervention on wages and corporate prices. This has been a powerful influence against a policy I regard as not only necessary but inevitable.

I should add one other thing. I do feel that in the United States, we've probably relied too much on the personal-property tax. I have long felt, in contrast with many of my liberal friends, that we should make much greater use of indirect taxes. We should have much higher taxes on upper-end consumption: expensive automobiles, clothing, meals. No one can complain that this kind of taxation is damaging to incentives. It's hard for someone who has to pay more for a Rolls-Royce to assert hardship.