Galbraith, John Kenneth
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1908-2006) Canadian-born US economist, famous and prolific, perhaps best known for The Affluent Society (1958), though the reasons for his renown are multifarious. Of sf interest is The McLandress Dimension (coll 1963; rev 1968 as by John Kenneth Galbraith) as by Mark Epernay, a series of mock-essays explaining advances in psychometry – the quantitative measurement of human actions and motives – accomplished by Herchel McLandress; B F Skinner, then in his heyday, may be a target of Galbraith's Satire. Along with other accomplishments, McLandress determines scientifically the attention span of national leaders, and creates a Computer-driven Fully Automated Foreign Policy, which works only if America admits to no past errors (see Amnesia). In the end, America is overthrown by her enemies' use of McLandress's insights to pervert late high capitalism. [JC]
see also: Leonard C Lewin.
John Kenneth Galbraith
born Iona Station, Ontario: 15 October 1908
died Cambridge, Massachusetts: 29 April 2006
works
- The McLandress Dimension (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963) as by Mark Epernay [coll: illus/hb/James Stevenson]
- The McLandress Dimension (New York: New American Library/Signet Books, 1968) as John Kenneth Galbraith [coll: rev of the above: under his own name: illus/pb/James Stevenson]
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