Editing John Kenneth Galbraith (section)

===World War II===
[[File:JohnKennethGalbraithOWI.jpg|thumb|right|Photograph was taken between 1940 and 1946 "I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, 'I'm in favor of privatization,' or, 'I'm deeply in favor of public ownership.' I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case." — C-SPAN, November 13, 1994<ref>Albalate, D. (2014). The privatisation and nationalisation of European roads: Success and failure in public-private partnerships. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, p. YIII.</ref>]]The United States went into WWII with an economy still not fully recovered from the [[Great Depression]].<ref>Rockoff, Hugh (2012) ''America's Economic Way of War: War and the U.S. Economy from the Spanish–American War to the Persian Gulf War''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0521676738}}.</ref> Because wartime production needs mandated large budget deficits and an accommodating monetary policy, inflation and a runaway wage-price spiral were seen as likely.<ref>Digests of Interpretation of the General Maximum Price Regulation. Washington, DC: [[Office of Price Administration]], 1942.</ref> As a part of a team charged with keeping inflation from damaging the war effort, Galbraith served as a deputy administrator of the [[Office of Price Administration]] (OPA) during [[United States home front during World War II|World War II]] in 1941–1943. The OPA directed the process of stabilization of prices and rents.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.2307/1884653| jstor = 1884653| title = The Tactics of Retail Price Control| journal = The Quarterly Journal of Economics| volume = 57| issue = 4| pages = 497–521| year = 1943| last1 = Miller | first1 = J. P.}}</ref>

On May 11, 1941, President Roosevelt created the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS). On August 28, 1941, it became the Office of Price Administration (OPA). After the US entered the war in December 1941, OPA was tasked with rationing and price controls.  The [[Emergency Price Control Act of 1942|Emergency Price Control Act]] passed on January 30, 1942, legitimized the OPA as a separate federal agency. It merged OPA with two other agencies: Consumer Protection Division and Price Stabilization Division of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense.<ref>Mansfield, Harvey C. ''et al.'' (1948) [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015043513608 ''A Short History of OPA''], Office of Temporary Controls, Office of Price Administration.</ref> The council was referred to as the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC), and was created on May 29, 1940.<ref name="Gale">Carson, Thomas, and Mary Bonk. Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. [http://www.answers.com/topic/office-of-price-administration]</ref> NDAC emphasized voluntary and advisory methods in keeping prices low. [[Leon Henderson]], the NDAC commissioner for price stabilization, became the administrator of OPACS and of OPA in 1941–1942. He oversaw a mandatory and vigorous price regulation that started in May 1942 after OPA introduced the General Maximum Price Regulation (GMPR). It was much criticized by the business community. In response, OPA mobilized the public on behalf of the new guidelines and said that it reduced the options for those who were seeking higher rents or prices. OPA had its own Enforcement Division, which documented the increase of violations: a quarter million in 1943 and more than 300,000 during the next year.<ref name="Gale" />

Historians and economists differ over the assessment of the OPA activities, which started with six people, but then grew to 15,000 staffers.<ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/60409-1/John+Kenneth+Galbraith.aspx ''Booknotes'' interview with Galbraith]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303215326/http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/60409-1/John%2BKenneth%2BGalbraith.aspx |date=March 3, 2016 }} on ''A Journey Through Economic Time'', November 13, 1994.</ref><ref name="Guardian Profile">{{cite web | url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/apr/06/socialsciences.highereducation | title=Last of the old-style liberals | work=The Guardian Profile: John Kenneth Galbraith | date=April 5, 2002 | access-date=July 4, 2013 | author=Steele, Jonathan }}</ref>  Some of them point to the fact that price increases were relatively lower than during the [[First World War]], and that the overall economy grew faster. [[Steven Pressman (economist)|Steven Pressman]], for example, wrote that "when the controls were removed there was only a small increase in prices, thereby demonstrating that inflationary pressures were actively managed and not just kept temporarily under control."<ref>{{cite book|author=Pressman, Steven |title=Leading Contemporary Economists: Economics at the Cutting Edge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RbUwqHAE4XQCpg|location=London|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2009|page=286}}</ref> Galbraith said in an interview that he considered his work at the OPA as his major life achievement, since prices were relatively stable during WWII.<ref name="Guardian Profile" /> The role of the OPA, however, as well as the whole legacy of the US government wartime economic stabilization measures from a long-term perspective, remains debated. [[Richard Parker (economist)|Richard Parker]], who earlier had written a well regarded biography of Galbraith had this to say about Galbraith's efforts during the war:

<blockquote>[H]e had first gone to work in the nation's capital in 1934 as a 25-year-old, fresh out of graduate school and just about to join the Harvard faculty as a young instructor.  He had returned to Washington in mid-1940, after Paris fell to the Germans, initially to help ready the nation for war.  Eighteen months later, after Pearl Harbor, he was then appointed to oversee the wartime economy as "price czar," charged with preventing inflation and corrupt price-gouging from devastating the economy as it swelled to produce the weapons and materiel needed to guarantee victory against fascism.  In this, he and his colleagues at the Office of Price Administration had been stunningly successful, guiding an economy that quadrupled in size in less than five years without fanning the inflation that had haunted World War I, or leaving behind an unbalanced post-war collapse of the kind that had done such grievous damage to Europe in the 1920s.<ref name=parker>[http://www.johnkennethgalbraith.com/index.php?page=articles&display=7 "Richard Parker : The Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170629020127/http://www.johnkennethgalbraith.com/index.php?page=articles&display=7 |date=June 29, 2017 }}. johnkennethgalbraith.com.</ref></blockquote>

Opposition to the OPA came from conservatives in Congress and the business community. It undercut Galbraith and he was forced out in May 1943, accused of "communistic tendencies".<ref>[[#Parker|Parker]], pp. 132–52.</ref> He was promptly hired by [[Henry Luce]], a conservative Republican and a dominant figure in American media as publisher of ''Time'' and ''Fortune'' magazines. Galbraith worked for Luce for five years and expounded Keynesianism to the American business leadership.<ref>[[#Parker|Parker]], pp. 156–71.</ref> Luce allegedly said to President Kennedy, "I taught Galbraith how to write—and have regretted it ever since."<ref name="RES Newsletter">{{cite web | url=http://www.res.org.uk/SpringboardWebApp/userfiles/res/file/obituaries/galbraith.pdf | title=J K Galbraith | publisher=Royal Economic Society | work=RES Newsletter, July 2006, no.132 | access-date=July 3, 2013 | archive-date=October 13, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131013050823/http://www.res.org.uk/SpringboardWebApp/userfiles/res/file/obituaries/galbraith.pdf | url-status=dead }}</ref> Galbraith saw his role as educating the entire nation on how the economy worked, including the role of big corporations. He was combining his writing with numerous speeches to business groups and local Democratic party meetings, as well as frequently testifying before Congress.<ref>{{cite book|author=Waligorski, Conrad |title=John Kenneth Galbraith: The Economist As Political Theorist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i1gJyodX2WEC&pg=PA8|year=2006|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|page=8|isbn=978-0-7425-3149-9}}</ref>

During the late stages of WWII in 1945, Galbraith was invited by [[Paul Nitze]] to serve as one of the "Officers" of the [[Strategic bombing survey|Strategic Bombing Survey]], initiated by the [[Office of Strategic Services]]. It was designed to assess the results of the aerial bombardments of Nazi Germany.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/ | title=United States Strategic Bombing Survey Reports | website=Ibiblio.org | access-date=July 3, 2013}}</ref> The survey found that German war production went up rather than down as German cities were being bombed.  Henderson (2006) wrote, 'Galbraith had to fight hard to have his report published without it being rewritten to hide the essential points.  "I defended it," he wrote, "with a maximum of arrogance and a minimum of tact."' Those findings created a controversy, with Nitze siding with others of the "Officers" managing the survey and with [[The Pentagon|Pentagon]] officials, who declared the opposite. Later, Galbraith described the willingness of public servants and institutions to bend the truth to please the Pentagon as the "Pentagonania syndrome".<ref>Carroll, James (2006). ''House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. {{ISBN|0618872019}}. p. 178. <!-- Galbraith (1969) How to control the military -->{{cite Q|Q114772547}}</ref>