Inflation has also been whipped as governments are finally embracing the type of strict monetary discipline Prof. Mundell has long advocated. And so it is that the Mundellian world has finally overtaken the Galbraithian. For his 50 years in the public eye, Prof. Galbraith has upbraided Western civilization over its private affluence and public squalor, encouraging greater taxation and redistribution of income to correct these flaws. Galbraith also staked much of his reputation on the argument that the market system was a failure and couldn't properly decide on prices, production, salaries and the like. Prof. Mundell dismisses Prof. Galbraith's intellectual elite as a form of totalitarianism and his ideas on taxes as a disease of catastrophic consequence.
Taxes are the arterial sclerosis of the economy.
Galbraith's ideas are what we are trying to recover from now. The problem with liberals is that they want to be compassionate. But they think compassion is being generous with other people's money. Oil and water, the two met in Geneva several years ago. Surprisingly, Prof. Mundell says they hit it off immediately.