Public activities tend to be less funded and meet lower standards. Housing in parts of some cities is elegant, while the streets and sidewalks that bind them are filthy. Children go to under-funded and chaotic schools, and then go home and watch expensively produced television programs. While the bulk of Galbraith's analysis is economic, a centerpiece of the book concerns itself with what he considers to be the decisive role of education. First, he points out that the good society cannot accept that education in the modern economy is primarily to service economic ends.
Education also has a bearing on social peace and tranquility.
Education provides hope and the reality of escape from the lower and less-favored social and economic strata to those above. Perhaps the best in education should be for those in the worst of social situations. In the good society there are two other purposes for education, though. One is to allow people to govern themselves intelligently and the other is to allow them to enjoy life to its fullest. In reading Galbraith, it struck me that in our instrumentally based approach to education, driven by big business and the demands of the marketplace, we have really lost sight of the broader ends of education.