The Affluent Society is a 1958 book by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. The book sought to clearly outline the manner in which the post-World War II America was becoming wealthy in the private sector but remained poor in the public sector, lacking social and physical infrastructure, and perpetuating income disparities. The book sparked much public discussion at the time, and it is widely remembered for Galbraith's coining and popularizing of the term "conventional wisdom".
See also
- Marshall Sahlins articulated in 1966 the theory that hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society.
