Duxton

Towering; Self correcting.

John Kenneth Galbraith in his book, The Culture of Contentment, argued that our politics for the past 200 years or so has been deeply influenced by laissez-faire which asserts that any interference in the market will have a harmful effect. We must let the market work under its principles and all will be alright in the end. So the theory goes. In Culture of Contentment, Galbraith describes this as the "belief that economic life has within itself the capacity to solve its own problems and for all to work out best in the end". One cannot help but think that this philosophy encourages us to think only in the short term, for as Keynes said, "In the long term, we are all dead". In the end, what this prevalent culture does is to absolve us of responsibility. It consecrates a flight from responsibility.