John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, OCwas a Canadianeconomist, public official, and diplomat, and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s, during which time Galbraith fulfilled the role of public intellectual. As an economist, he leaned toward Post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth15 October 1908
CountryUnited States of America
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.
People are the common denominator of progress. So... no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills,and the other familiar furniture of economic development.... But we are coming to realize... that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.
I was in charge of price controls in World War II and had a ceiling on overall prices. Everybody who was subject to general maximum price regulation wanted an exception and went to Congress to persuade a Congressman, or a group of people on the Hill, that I was being a menace to their industry.
Much of the world's work, it has been said, is done by men who do not feel quite well. Marx is a case in point.
Poverty" Pitt exclaimed "is no disgrace but it is damned annoying." In the contemporary United States it is not annoying but it is a disgrace.
The happiest time of anyone's life is just after the first divorce.
I've been a faithful reader of the great classical documents of economics, or tried to be. The first book in the field that I ever read was Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall. I suppose subsequently I would have to pick out Keynes, Adam Smith, Marx.
It is not necessary to advertise food to hungry people, fuel to cold people, or houses to the homeless.
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.