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John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes - Page 5

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Financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long-run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So

Financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long-run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with Communism, lies the threat to Capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Running, Lying, Mean
John Kenneth Galbraith (1997). “The Great Crash, 1929”, p.194, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Mystery, Should, Buyers
John Kenneth Galbraith (2009). “The Great Crash 1929”, p.117, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

In Europe and the United States the two decades following the Second World War will for long be remembered as a very good time, the time when capitalism really worked. Everywhere in the industrialized countries production increased. Unemployment was everywhere low. Prices were nearly stable. When production lagged and unemployment rose, governments intervened to take up the slack, as Keynes had urged.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Country, War, Government

The modern corporation must manufacture not only goods but the desire for the goods it manufactures.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Business, Desire, Corporations
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.225, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A good rule of conversation is never answer a foolish question.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Answers, Foolish, Conversation
"What I've Learned: John Kenneth Galbraith" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Poverty, United States, Annoying
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.242, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Agreement, Pessimism, Mark

It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast - even the English can't do it.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Travel, Home, Skills
John Kenneth Galbraith (1969). “Ambassador's Journal”

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Book, Faithful, Fields
Source: www.progressive.org

Almost every aspect of its (Federal Reserve) history should be approached with a discriminating disregard for what is commonly taught or believed.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Investing, Taught, Should

Economic stimulation that works through the increased outlays to the affluent has, inevitably, an aspect of soundness and sanity that is lacking in expenditure on behalf of the undeserving poor.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Sanity, Economic, Poor
John Kenneth Galbraith (2017). “Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went”, p.270, Princeton University Press

Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Drinking, Commitment, Dope

Who is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man?

John Kenneth Galbraith
Kings, Men, World
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 6, p. 180, 1977.

All writers know that on some golden mornings they are touched by the wand; they are on intimate terms with poetry and cosmic truth. I have experienced these moments myself. Their lesson is simple: It's a total illusion. And the danger in the illusion is that you will wait for those moments.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Morning, Simple, Waiting

The stock market is but a mirror which provides an image of the underlying or fundamental economic situation. Cause and effect run from the economy to the stock market, never the reverse. In 1929 the economy was headed for trouble. Eventually that trouble was violently reflected in Wall Street.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Running, Wall, Mirrors
John Kenneth Galbraith (2009). “The Great Crash 1929”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Private enterprise did not get us atomic energy.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Energy, Atomic Energy, Enterprise
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.271, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.

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

Banking may well be a career from which no man really recovers.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Business, Men, Careers
John Kenneth Galbraith (1969). “Ambassador's Journal”

No society ever seems to have succumbed to boredom. Man has developed an obvious capacity for surviving the pompous reiteration of the commonplace.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Men, Boredom, Capacity
John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Power, Underwear, Economy
John Kenneth Galbraith (1968). “The New Industrial State”

If all else fails immortality can always be assured by adequate error.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Laughter, Mistake, Humorous
"Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1975.

Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Class, Riches, Rich
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977.

The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Economic, Economy, States
John Kenneth Galbraith (1987). “Economics in Perspective: A Critical History”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Even in such a time of madness as the late twenties, a great many man in Wall Street remained quite sane. But they also remained very quiet. The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil. Perhaps this is inherent. In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Wise, Wall, Responsibility
John Kenneth Galbraith (1955). “The great crash, 1929”

The line dividing the state from what is called private enterprise, orat least fromthehighlyorganized part of it, is a traditional fiction.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Fiction, Lines, States
1967 The New Industrial State.

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