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
I have never understood why one's affections must be confined, as once with women, to a single country.
There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbable enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal and impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it.
The urge to consume is fathered by the value system which emphasizes the ability of the society to produce.
In the market economy the price that is offered is counted upon to produce the result that is sought.
The fully planned economy, so far from being unpopular, is warmly regarded by those who know it best.
If people are hungry, ill-clad, unsheltered or diseased, nothing is so important as to remedy their condition.
No hungry man who is also sober can be persuaded to use his last dollar for anything but food.
The questions that are beyond the reach of economics-the beauty, dignity, pleasure and durability of life-may be inconvenient but they are important.
According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.
Economists, on the whole, think well of what they do themselves and much less well of what their professional colleagues do.
Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego.
The individual serves the industrial system not by supplying it with savings and the resulting capital; he serves it by consuming its products.
Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.
If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement.