ABSTRACT
Professor J. K. Galbraith attempts to demonstrate that in our affluent society the important private needs are already satisfied and the urgent need is therefore no longer a further expansion of the output of commodities but an increase of those services which are supplied (and presumably can be supplied only) by government. The cultural origin of practically all the needs of civilized life must of course not be confused with the fact that there are some desires which aim at a satisfaction derived directly not from the use of an object, but only from the status which its consumption is expected to confer. The joint but unco-ordinated efforts of the producers merely create one element of the environment by which the wants of the consumers are shaped. It is because each individual producer thinks that the consumers can be persuaded to like his products that he endeavours to influence them.
