A great American died Saturday. John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the few, truly articulate voices of socialist opposition to modern American madness, is gone.

The New York Times has an excellent survey of his life and ideas. If for no other reason I recommend it as a first-rate compendium of delightful Galbraithisms, such as: “One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read.”

In this held-over age of the vastly “comfortably pretentious,” Galbraith’s eloquent humanity will be missed.