401 CHRONICLESnA book entitled The Fashion (Conspiracynis all the rage here. It is a chattynbook, by a chatty man (Nicholas Coleridge)nwho edits a chatty magazinen{Harpers & Queen), written for chattynpeople; that it has received so muchnattention in the pages of serious periodicalsnrun by sober editors and read bynordinary people is largely attributablento the author’s digressions from hisnfashionable subject. In these, the authorn”exposes” the industry’s terriblensecret, namely (in the words of onenserious reviewer) the fact thatnserious money can be made innthe fashion business, althoughnoutworkers, on whom thenbusiness relies, may be illiterate,nconfined to barrack-likensweatshops in Seoul or StokenNewington, and useless after thenage of 25 when their eyes givenout.nHere is another revelation: “thousands”nof dresses, “thousands” of dollars each,nare never picked up from the cleanersnby their owners. Where? The MeshalnDry Laundry in Kuwait. “Meanwhile,nin a sweatshop in Madras …”nAll right, what’s the point? The pointnis that any fool can draw a line betweennwise consumption and unwise consumption,nand only an idiot will do itnusing facts and figures. The author ofnThe Fashion Conspiracy is one suchnfool, but he is too chatty; so let us turnnto the source, to the idiot if you will.nHe is, of course, John Kenneth Galbraith,nWarburg Professor of EconomicsnEmeritus at Harvard, sometimenAmbassador to India, and erstwhilenFortune editor. Last year, his book AnView From the Stands was publishednhere and in the U.S., and I proposenthat one look at it will rehabilitatenconspicuous consumption, fromnBalducci’s to Valentino, in the eyes ofnthe strictest of Puritans.nPeople, politics, military power, andnthe arts are the subjects enumerated innthe book’s subtitle. The absence ofneconomics. Professor Galbraith’s ownnfield, is noteworthy but not surprising:nProfessor Galbraith is a thinker in thenHegelian tradition of presumptive omnisciencenwho writes on any subjectnwith equal confidence and facility. Asnhe (modestly) acknowledges, these essaysnare “the less solemn offering”; yetnlike his economic writings of the pastnthey give a cogent expression to thenGalbraith world view. What is it?nSince the 1950’s, when AmericannCapitalism, A Theory of Price Control,nand The Affluent Society appearednand were deemed “influential,”nProfessor Galbraith has believed thatnAmerican society consists of the richnand the poor, concepts which, in hisnmind, possess as much meaning as theyndid for Marx a century earlier. In thenessays included in this book, in a varietynof contexts, he continues to speak ofnthe two “classes,” though it may benexpected that his readers are even morenbewildered by this time-worn wordplayntoday than they had been in years past.nIn a 1984 essay, “The InconvenientnReverse Logic of Our Time,” for instance.nProfessor Galbraith speaks ofn”Americans living below the povertynlevel” as if the definition of poverty byna particular government (one which, inn1984, he incidentally abhorred) hadnsome transcendent value. Strugglingnfor a more concise definition of thendowntrodden class, he uses anothernyardstick: “a minimum of decency andnhappiness.” Yet what that minimum isnwe are never told, nor can we knownwith ultimate certainty if decency andnhappiness consist in faith in God, guaranteednincome, or success in a game ofnpoker.nWay back in the 1920’s, “the foundernof socialist planning,” S.G.nStrumilin, developed the Soviet “normnof consumption” for every manmachine:n1,250 calories a day. In practicalnterms, this was to mean 1.54 lb. ofnrye flour in addition to 0.25 lb. ofngroats (although 0.25 lb. of meat,n0.006 lb. of sugar, and 0.05 lb. ofnanimal fat were theoretically included),nand all human wants beyond this “scientificnnorm” would henceforth benknown as “artificially generated,” thatnis, superfluous. Is Professor Galbraith’snmethod of measuring the “minimumnof decency and happiness” any differentnfrom Strumilin’s? Only, I suspect,nin that it is less “scientific,” based morenon the subjective upper-middle-classnwhimsy of a Harvard intellectual thannon the “objective needs of the Sovietnstate.”nIn a 1966 essay, “The Starvation ofnthe Gities,” Professor Galbraith writes:n”We can easily afford an income floor.nIt would cost about $20 billion to bringneveryone up to what the Departmentnnnof HEW considers a reasonable minimum.”nThis, to him, is an acceptablencriterion, and yet in the same paragraphnhe says with disapproval that thensame amount would be wasted “duringnthe next fiscal year to restore freedom,ndemocracy, and religious liberty, asnthese are defined by experts, in Vietnam.”nWhy do some experts in thenU.S. government know more aboutnhappiness and freedom than others?nOnly, I suspect, because the author ofnHow to Get Out of Vietnam disagreesnwith some people and agrees withnothers, an excusable human trait thatnmakes for an idiot’s public policy.nIt must be noted, incidentally, thatnProfessor Galbraith did not write hisnstudy of the Vietnam conflict in 1954nto advise the U.S. government, readynto defend South Vietnam, how to winnthe war for which its bureaucracy wasnno better prepared than it was fornanything else. He wrote the study inn1967 to tell the U.S. government hownto lose the war, abandon South Vietnam,n”get out”! Anyone can writenpamphlets on how to lose a war, just asnanyone can advise the government onnhow to redistribute its tax revenues ornberate it for its failure to provide itsncitizens with “a minimum of decencynand happiness.”nTime and again, as in the 1984nessay on “Money in American Fiction,”nProfessor Galbraith enlarges onnhis axiomatic distinction between thenhappy rich and the miserable poor, butnnowhere is his vision of society sonabsurdly materialist as in his view ofn”work,” a concept which he had definednwith Hegelian completeness earlynin his career (in The Affluent Society)nas “any exertion of mind or bodynundergone partially or wholly with anview to some good other than thenpleasure derived directly from work.”nPersonally, as a writer, I have neverndone a day’s work by ProfessornGalbraith’s definition and would surelynhave been exiled or incarcerated fornparasitism in Strumilin’s Russia. Yet, asna denizen of the free West, I amnprotected from the good professor’snidea of “work” every bit as much as Inam immune to his notion of “decencynand happiness.” So, fortunately fornthem, are all the other poor and downtroddennwhose champion ProfessornGalbraith has been ever since his daysnat Fortune.n