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John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes - Page 2

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Were it part of our everyday education and comment that the corporation is an instrument for the exercise of power, that it belongs to the process by which we are governed, there would then be debate on how that power

Were it part of our everyday education and comment that the corporation is an instrument for the exercise of power, that it belongs to the process by which we are governed, there would then be debate on how that power is used and how it might be made subordinate to the public will and need. This debate is avoided by propagating the myth that the power does not exist.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Exercise, Everyday, Doe

Few things are as immutable as the addiction of political groups to the ideas by whichthey have once won office.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Ideas, Addiction, Office
1958 The Affluent Society

Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Wealth, Prosperity, Finance
"The Sydney Morning Herald" Newspaper, May 22, 1982.

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Writing, People, Realization
James K. Galbraith, Kari Levitt, Mel Watkins, John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (2009). “Unconventional wisdom: lectures from the John Kenneth Galbraith prize in economics”

If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Money, People, Levels
John Kenneth Galbraith (2017). “Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went”, p.348, Princeton University Press

In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Thoughtful, People, Use
John Kenneth Galbraith (1958). “The Affluent Society”

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Government, Home Economics, Employment
"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Education, Sea, People
"Economic Development". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 2, 1962.

In economics, the majority is always wrong.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Inspirational, Majority, Investing
John Kenneth Galbraith (1969). “Ambassador's Journal”

There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Poverty, Common, Poor

In the conventional wisdom of conservatives, the modern search for security is regularly billed as the greatest single threat to economic progress.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Progress, Modern, Economic
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.94, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Character, Wealth, Building

Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Economic, Milton, Policy

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations... But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Government, Views, Class
The Guardian, May 23, 1992.

It is almost as important to know what is not serious as to know what is.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Important, Serious, Knows
John Kenneth Galbraith, James Goodman (1998). “Letters to Kennedy”, p.76, Harvard University Press

It's great to be with William Buckley, because you don't have to think. He takes a position and you automatically take the opposite one and you know you're right.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Thinking, Opposites, Position

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Memories, Freedom, Political

The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Responsibility, Community, Financial
John Kenneth Galbraith (1955). “The great crash, 1929”

The threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth. Exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great -- a little understood thing.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Reality, Men, Littles
John Kenneth Galbraith (1981). “A life in our times: memoirs”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When everything else failed, we can still become immortal by making an enormous blunder.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Death, Suicide, Enormous

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Majority, Politics, Wonderful
The Guardian, July 28, 1989.

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Inspiration, Successful, Doors
John Kenneth Galbraith (2001). “The Essential Galbraith”, p.186, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The happiest time of anyone's life is just after the first divorce.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Divorce, Firsts, Life Is

Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Simple, Complexity, Sophistication
"The Age of Uncertainty". Documentary, 1977.

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