The late economist and public intellectual John Kenneth Galbraith was my intellectual hero. I was turned to his way of thinking when I was 16 years old, and by family friend Skip Rudy, while I was visiting in Chicago. Skip gave me two books that would reshape the direction of my life: The New Industrial State and Limits To Growth.
The New Industrial State was written by Professor Galbraith, and I was immediately attracted to a way of thinking about economics that included social and political movements. An approach called “Institutional Economics.” Limits To Growth concerned the World Model program at MIT of the early 70s and the use of yet another way of thinking called “System Dynamics.”
But it was the New Industrial State that opened the door to Galbraith and to Berkeley. It was after reading about Dr. Galbraith’s time at Cal that I started to think of attending the university, and eventually did for grad school in City Planning.
Now, in this 51 minute long interview with Harry Kreisler in 1986, Professor Galbraith begins by talking about his time at Berkeley and how it impacted his career and his way of thinking.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll