cheap, suppressing competition and sellingndear.” We hear echoes, sounds fromnthe distant past, from the time of thenincreasingly hard-up landed aristocracy.nWhat Galbraith despises about the modernnbusinessman is that he is in trade.nOn the other hand, we have the academicpolitician-bureaucrat,na man likenGalbraith. “The modern politician nownranks well above the man of wealth as anperson of distinction,” a classic Galbraithndictum supposed to set up a new snobberynstandard.nGalbraith, the erstwhile poor farm boynfrom Canada, likes to assume the pose ofnthe outsider when he scourges the bourgeoisie.nWho can doubt he is speaking ofnhimself when he says, “As often as not,nthe intelligent man is not sought out.nRather, he is excluded as a threat.” Can itnbe that at his back he always hears thenbraying interrogation: “If you’re so smart,nwhy ain’t you rich.””nBut Galbraith recognizes the saleabilitynin our time of the idea of equality, evennas he proclaims—and seeks to ensure—nhis superiority. Some—the academicpolitical-bureaucrats—willnbe more equalnthan others. When Galbraith grows up,nhe wants to set prices—he’ll settle fornbeing the man who controls births asnsecond choice. For: “there is no way ofncombining high employment with stablenprices that does not involve some controlnof incomes and prices.”nGalbraith recognizes the key truth:nthe man who controls prices takes not anback seat to the President of GeneralnMotors. Those he speaks for are onto angood thing, enjoying the fruits of annirresponsible materialism while they regularlynexcoriate the sheer vulgar fatnessnof business-generated wealth. In his visionnof the world, one can and shouldnpreach equality and become an elitistnmillionaire from preaching.nThe result is chronicled by the liberalnNew Republic, now undergoing an extendednrepentance. “We here in Washingtonnare independent … of the ebbnand flow of the private economy, includingn. . . unemployment and inflation.nIndeed the visions of generationsnof liberals have created a prosperous citynwhose population is completely isolatednfrom the problems they’re supposed tonsolve. They are a new privileged class—ofnhigh salaries and guaranteed securitynrather than wealth or birth.”nSpeaking of the Russian colonialismnin post-World War II Poland, Galbraithnsays, “To be governed by one’s inferiorsn. . . is an especially bitter thing.” LikenScarlett O’Hara, Galbraith has vowednnever to be poor again. If the Age ofnUncertainty leaves “men wondering hownand by whom and to what end they arenruled,” Galbraith provides the answer.nBy men like him. •n”Galbraith, as ever, is forthright and funny; he is a wizard at packing immense amounts ofninformation into a style so entertaining that the reader does not realize he is being taught . . .”n— The New Yorker.n”. . . this work of Professor Galbraith’s is a glorious lark—a funny, hard-hitting caper by one of thengreat stylists, and one of the great social consciences, of our time . . .” —Saturday Review.n”The combination of wit and seriousness makes him a distinguished popularizer and advocate whoncan waltz through wars, revolutions, famines, depressions and global follies without ever losing thencrease of his Savile Row prose …” — Time.nnnChronicles of Culturen