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John Kenneth Galbraith
218 quotes
“By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only in very recent times has the average man been a source of savings.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The individual serves the planning system not by supplying it with savings and the resulting capital; he serves it far more by consuming its products. On no other activity, religious, political or moral, is he so elaborately, skillfully and expensively instructed.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter IV, Section 3, p. 39 (1985)
“In the assumption that power belongs as a matter of course to capital, all economists are Marxians.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may lay it down as a rule that the older the exercise of any power, the more benign it will appear, and the more recent its assumption, the more unnatural and even dangerous it will seem.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter V, Section 4, p. 58 (1985)
“The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The size of General Motors is in the service not of monopoly or the economies of scale but of planning.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing so effectively economizes effort and intelligence, as distinct from anxiety, as the knowledge that nothing can be done.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter VIII, Section 1, p. 91 (1985)
“Because individuals have more standing in the culture than organizations, they regularly get credit for achievement that belongs, in fact, to organization.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter VII, Section 5, p. 101 (1985)
“Men are, in fact, either sustained by organization or they sustain organization.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The power of the market, which is the fulcrum of traditional attitudes, depends on the validity of this assumption. It is a far, far better thing to admit to monopoly profits, even at exploitive levels, than to concede that the market is impotent.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter X, Section 2, p. 119 (1985)
“Economic theory is the most prestigious subject of instruction and study. Agricultural economics, labor economics and marketing are lower caste fields of study.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That one never need to look beyond the love of money for explanation of human behavior is one of the most jealously guarded simplifications of our culture.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The notion of a formal structure of command must be abandoned. It is more useful to think of the mature corporation as a series of concentric circles.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even the economist, who most takes for granted the primacy of pecuniary motivation, looks askance at the colleague who is too avid for consulting fees from corporations or textbook revenues or travel at the expense of the Ford Foundation. Academic courtesy may require that he refrain from first-person comment but duty dictates that he be vigorously critical of the transgressor when the latter is absent.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XII, Section 3, p. 155 (1985)
“While it will be desirable to achieve planned results, it will be even more important to avoid unplanned disasters.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If he suspects that economics, as it is conventionally taught, is, in part, a system of belief designed less to reveal truth than to reassure students and other communicants as to the benign tendency of established social arrangements, he will also be right.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XV, Section 1, p. 175 (1985)
“Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For thousands of reluctant scholars, a few distantly remembered curves depicting the interaction of supply and demand to establish prices have for long been the only permanent return on an investment in economic education.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XVI, Section 1, p. 187 (1985)
“The latter situation, that of the monopolists, is the apogee of improper influence. In the English language only a few words — fraud, subversion, sodomy — have a greater connotation of nonviolent wickedness.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XVI, Section 1, p. 187 (1985)
“It is a well-established, though perhaps somewhat transparent, technique of argument, on encountering something which cannot easily be reconciled with preferred belief, to point to the exceptions. What does not invariably exist is then held not to exit.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XVIII, Section 1, p. 207 (1985)
“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 (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not the individual's right to buy that is being protected. Rather, it is the seller's right to manage the individual.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That one’s personal reactions signify the public reaction is not, scientifically, a defensible proposition but where the preservation of precious intellectual capital is involved, scientific method is readily sacrificed.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XVIII, Section 6, p 218 (1985)
“THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM requires that prices be under effective control. And it seeks the greatest possible influence over what buyers take at the established prices.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who yearn for the defeat of their enemy are said to wish that he might write a book.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XX, Section 1, p. 222 (1985)
“To add to the technostructure is to increase its power in the enterprise.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Should there be sacrifice, as always in the mature corporation, it is not suffered by those who agree to it.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XXII, Section 4, p. 262 (1985)
“More generally, the individual who gets added income as a result of a general inflationary movement atributes it not to larger economic causes but to his own virtue and diligence.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XXII, Section 4, p. 263 (1985)
“The first goal of the technostructure is its own security.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the small but rewarding vocations of a free society is the provision of needed conclusions, properly supported by statistics and moral indignation, for those in a position to pay for them.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XXIII, Section 1, p. 271 (1985)
“The overall effect of the rise of the industrial system is greatly to reduce the union as a social force. But it will not disappear or become entirely unimportant.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a man be subject to the authority of another, he can at least ask that it not be an occasion for glee.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XXV, Section 2, p. 293 (1985)
“Agreeable as it is to know where one is proceeding, it is far more important to know where one has arrived.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A drastic reduction in weapons competition following a general release from the commitment to the Cold War would be sharply in conflict with the needs of the industrial system.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All, the intelligent and stupid, diligent and idle, have been swept along on a current of increased output that, in the usual case, owed nothing whatever to their efforts.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“THE GENIUS of the industrial system lies in its organized use of capital and technology. This is made possible, as we have duly seen, by extensively replacing the market with planning.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Educators have yet to realize how deeply the industrial system is dependent upon them.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing in our time is more interesting than the erstwhile capitalist corporation and the erstwhile Communist firm should, under the imperatives of organization, come together as oligarchies of their own members.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No grant of feudal privilege has ever equaled, for effortless return, that of the grandparent who bought and endowed his descendants with a thousandshares ofGeneral Motors or General Electric.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it can be laid down as a rule that those who speak most of liberty are least inclined to use it.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Among all the world's races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The traveler to the United States will do well, however, to prepare himself for the class-consciousness of the natives. This differs from the already familiar English version in being more extreme and based more firmly on the conviction that the class to which the speaker belongs is inherently superior to all others.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once the visitor was told rather repetitively that this city was the melting pot; never before in history had so many people of such varied languages, customs, colors and culinary habits lived so amicably together. Although New York remains peaceful by most standards, this self-congratulation is now less often heard, since it was discovered some years ago that racial harmony depended unduly on the willingness of the blacks (and latterly the Puerto Ricans) to do for the other races the meanest jobs at the lowest wages and then to return to live by themselves in the worst slums.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is wonder and a certain wicked pleasure in these giddy ascents and terrible falls, especially as they happen to other people.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A constant in the history of money is that every remedy is reliably a source of new abuse.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source