In the following essay, Karier discusses how Galbraith's progressive economic ideas, as expressed in The Affluent Society and other works, are "heretical" to followers of the free market doctrine.

One of the less-recognized accomplishments of the New Deal was its displacement of scores of entrenched bureaucrats, following twelve years of Republican administrations. Believers in balanced budgets and free markets were out, while believers in jobs programs and government regulation were in. In this atmosphere of change, many liberal reformers were swept into the federal government, including a young Harvard professor named John Kenneth Galbraith. With a degree in agricultural economics from Berkeley, Galbraith was employed by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the summer of 1934. Thus began a long and illustrious career - one that included Director of the Office of Price Administration during World War II, Editor at Forbes, President of the American Economic Association, and Ambassador...