John Kenneth Galbraith, October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006

The answer or part of the answer is rather clear: everybody should be guaranteed a decent basic income. A rich country such as the US can well afford to keep everybody out of poverty. Some, it will be said, will seize upon the income and won't work. So it is now with more limited welfare, as it is called. Let us accept some resort to leisure by the poor as well as by the rich.

From a lecture by
John Kenneth Galbraith, 90,
(June 28, 1999) in London
on receiving an honorary doctorate
from London School of Economics.