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John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes - Page 10

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We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action of the machine we have created to serve us.

We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action of the machine we have created to serve us.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Machines, Becoming, Action
John Kenneth Galbraith (2015). “The New Industrial State”, p.9, Princeton University Press

Economic life, as always, is a matrix in which result becomes cause and cause becomes result.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Causes, Economic, Results
John Kenneth Galbraith (2017). “Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went”, p.222, Princeton University Press

The income men derive from producing things of slight consequence is of great consequence. The production reflects the low marginal utility of the goods to society. The income reflects the high total utility of a livelihood to a person.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Business, Men, Income
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.217, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Every corner of the public psyche is canvassed by some of the most talented citizens to see if the desire for some merchandisable product can be cultivated.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Desire, Citizens, Global Issues

The size of General Motors is in the service not of monopoly or the economies of scale but of planning.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Size, Planning, Economy
John Kenneth Galbraith (2015). “The New Industrial State”, p.96, Princeton University Press

There are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I'm greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Writing, Four, Revision

Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Use, Succeed, Economy

Ideas may be superior to vested interest. They are also very often the children of vested interest.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Children, Ideas, May
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977.

In 1929 the discovery of the wonders of the geometric series struck Wall Street with a force comparable to the invention of the wheel.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Wall, Discovery, Wheels
John Kenneth Galbraith (2009). “The Great Crash 1929”, p.76, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Thinking, Errors, Democracies Have
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 12, p. 330, 1977.

In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Money, War, Government
"Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter VIII, "The Great Compromise," p. 90, 1975.

The accepted ideas of any period are singularly those that serve the dominant economic interest...What economists believe and teach, whether in the United States or in the Soviet Union, is rarely hostile to the institutions - the private business enterprise, the Communist Party - that reflect the dominant economic power. Not to notice this takes effort, although many succeed.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Party, Believe, Ideas

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
War, People, World
Source: www.progressive.org

From the spring of 1941, I controlled all prices in the United States. You could lower a price without my permission, but you couldn't raise a price without my permission or that of my staff.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Spring, United States, Permission
Source: www.progressive.org

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Mistake, Science, Opportunity
"The New Industrial State". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter XVIII, Section 5, p. 208, 1967.

Few people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them what they wanted.

John Kenneth Galbraith
People, Advertising, Economy
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There was the Missile Crisis, but one can't attribute to the [J.F.] Kennedy years anything like the problems that [Franklin] Roosevelt stood over and surmounted.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Years, Problem, Franklin
Source: progressive.org

The notion that you would initiate a new product without preparing the way by persuasion and advertising and salesmanship is fantastic. It's an integral part of the system.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Way, Advertising, Persuasion
Source: progressive.org

Foreign policy is conducted for the convenience and enjoyment of people in Washington.

John Kenneth Galbraith
People, Politics, Convenience

We talk of the enormous virtues of work, but it turns out that that is mostly for the poor. If you're rich enough or if you're a college professor, the virtue lies in leisure and the use you make of your leisure time.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Lying, College, Leisure
Source: www.progressive.org

I begin with the renaming of the system. It used to be capitalism. But that evokes [Karl] Marx and [John] Rockefeller. So now we speak of the market system. That is a nice bland expression, which forgets those off-color references.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Nice, Expression, Color
Source: progressive.org

The inborn instability of capitalism has been part of the history of the system for several hundred years, including recurrent speculative episodes. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that we're now having another one of those speculative episodes.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Years, Doubt, Mind
Source: progressive.org

There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Affluence, Lifetime, Squalor
Source: www.progressive.org

There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater. What do we worry about? We worry about our schools. We worry about our public recreational facilities. We worry about our law enforcement and our public housing. All of the things that bear upon our standard of living are in the public sector.

John Kenneth Galbraith
School, Law, Worry
Source: progressive.org

No ethic is as ethical as the work ethic.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Work, Work Ethic, Ethics

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