The author's response to the political and economic condition of the West today, this book traces the growth of a new, stultifying contentment in our society. Galbraith contrasts the condition of the underclass to that of the self-serving, politically dominant classes. He looks at the causes and by-products of the current politico-economic stasis, such as short-term thinking and investment, and draws parallels between the crippling denial of trouble in Eastern Europe and that in our own backyard. The author also wrote The Affluent Society and The New Industrialist State.