Economics, politics and sociology: on the contribution of J K Galbraith's unconventional wisdom to the discourse of classical sociology

Classical sociology is generally equated with analyses of late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century thinkers whose writings ranged seamlessly across what, subsequently, would become differentiated fields of inquiry. One twentieth-century analyst whose texts replicate aspects of the works of the classical sociologists is J.K. Galbraith, a figure whose disciplinary home is conventionally considered to be economics, but whose writings transcend disciplinary boundaries to explore the articulation of economic, social and political phenomena. Galbraith's studies, addressing such matters as increasing inequality and growing economic insecurity; the cultivation and management of consumer demand; the imbalance between private consumption and public provision; and the growth in military and defence expenditure, continue to be of contemporary relevance and warrant a prominent place within sociology.