James Galbraith's THE PREDATOR STATE in Publishers Weekly

Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 5/19/2008
-- Publishers Weekly, 5/19/2008

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should, Too
James K. Galbraith. Free Press, $25 (228p) ISBN 978-1-4165-6683-0

In this involved but highly readable manifesto, economist Galbraith (Created Unequal) argues that only liberals remain in thrall to conservative economics, insisting that doctrines such as monetarism, supply-side economics and balanced budgets have failed the test of evidence and time. Republicans, he contends, have tacitly dropped them to create a swollen “predator state” that plunders public resources for corporate profit through such nostrums as private health insurance, No Child Left Behind, and Social Security privatization. He exhorts liberals to stop kowtowing to market solutions and budget-balancing and embrace a bold (though frustratingly nonspecific) New Deal featuring aggressive government planning and regulation and massive growth-promoting federal deficits. Galbraith's tour of economics abounds in arresting facts and opinions (tax cuts do not stimulate savings or investment, he argues), but his conclusions are not always clear: after demolishing justifications for free trade, he then urges readers not to worry about America's vast trade deficits—even though they threaten, he notes, to cause a catastrophic collapse of the dollar. His is a stimulating if sometimes scattershot challenge to conventional wisdom. (Aug. 5)

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