Q 13

PLAYBOY: You've commented on Proposition 13 and Proposition Two and a Half. Have you ever been propositioned?

John Kenneth Galbraith: I thought I had a delightful possibility in London a few months ago. I was walking back to my hotel after the theater and this tall, well-dressed, very respectable-looking woman stopped me and said, "Pardon me, are you Australian?" I told her I was not. "How good," she replied. And then she walked away. That's the closest approach I've had at my age. To my regret.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: Do economists have groupies?

John Kenneth Galbraith: That's not a word that's in wide use in the profession. But many of my friends over the years have been women, and when I think of calling somebody for lunch or dinner, on the whole I'm more likely to think of my woman friends than I am of men. I would also have to answer that I've been married to the same woman now for nearly 45 years and she has the reputation of being singularly beautiful.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: Do you consider yourself one of the best and the brightest?

John Kenneth Galbraith: It's an exercise in incredible immodesty for me to answer that. Oh, I suppose I've never written anything without saying to myself, "Well, that's certainly going to be persuasive." But the likelihood is that one will always exaggerate one's influence.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Have you figured out who really runs America?

John Kenneth Galbraith: There's no simple answer. The Constitution divides power among the executive, the legislature and the courts. That's no negligible thing. But the corporate establishment does much to set public opinion. In the United States, public expression is strongly correlated to income. The voice of one New York banker complaining about his oppression at the hands of the Government is the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of welfare mothers in the Bronx. The voices of affluence and the corporate position are much louder and are regularly mistaken for the voice of the masses.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: Many wealthy foreigners see the United States as capitalism's last great hope. They're investing in American businesses and real estate. Are they putting their money in the right place?

John Kenneth Galbraith: I've already made some adverse comments about economists who make predictions and I'm certainly not going to join that community. But I've always taken it for granted that the system survives because it yields to accommodation and to patching up.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: Economics has been called a science. Are you saying that it's a kind of service profession?

John Kenneth Galbraith: One of the great errors in economics is the desire of economists to believe that because Adam Smith said something in the 18th Century it must still be true. Smith was a practical man. He would be the first to recognize that the world and institutions with which he dealt have changed very much.

A science such as physics or chemistry has a subject matter that does not change. Knowledge in those fields changes only as more information is brought to bear. In economics, the subject matter itself constantly changes. In my own lifetime, we've had considerable development of the great corporations, trade unions and services of the state. Anybody who made up his mind about economics 40 years ago is bound to be obsolete now.

Q 19

PLAYBOY: You served as an Ambassador during the Kennedy Administration. Do you long for a return to "Camelot"?

John Kenneth Galbraith: During that period, the Government of the United States was tinged with a certain excitement. The Government was a force for the good and without wanting to use the term Camelot, I hope that excitement might not be dead.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: Every man is said to have his price. Can you name yours?

John Kenneth Galbraith: About two weeks ago, an automobile company offered me an enormous sum of money, $200,000 or $300.000, if I would endorse its automobile. I declined on the simple ground that I didn't want to have my name and my views for sale. I would still have declined if it had doubled the price.