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
In 1929 the discovery of the wonders of the geometric series struck Wall Street with a force comparable to the invention of the wheel.
Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described.
The family which takes it mauve and cerise, air conditioned, power-steered, and power braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground.
There is no name for all who participate in group decision-making or the organization which they form. I propose to call this organization the Technostructure.
To add to the technostructure is to increase its power in the enterprise.
In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading a syndicate that was driving the market down.
We do not manufacture wants for goods we do not produce.
In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway.
Simple minds, presumably, are the easiest to manage.
The size of General Motors is in the service not of monopoly or the economies of scale but of planning.
Men are, in fact, either sustained by organization or they sustain organization.
In fact, the wage-price spiral is the functional counterpart of unemployment. The latter occurs when there is insufficient demand; the spiral operates when there is too much and also,unfortunately, when there is just enough.
The first goal of the technostructure is its own security.
But it can be laid down as a rule that those who speak most of liberty are least inclined to use it.