Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

Economist

Filter quotes by topic

AllEconomyMenPeopleEconomicsEconomicIfsPoliticsWorldPoliticalCapitalismShouldInvestingStatesGovernmentPoorHas BeensEconomistModernProblemImportant

Famous John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

“The traveler to the United States will do wellto 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.”

StatesUnitedConsciousnessClassUnited StatesConvictionExtremesFamiliarSuperiorsVersionsSpeakersTravelerClass Consciousness
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“Technology, under all circumstances, leads to planning; in its higher manifestations it may put the problems of planning beyond the reach of the industrial firm. Technological compulsions, and not ideology or political will, will require the firm to seek the help and protection of the state.”

MayStatesHelpingProblemPoliticalPoliticsTechnologyHigherCircumstancesProtectionPlanningIdeologyFirmManifestationTechnologicalCompulsionPolitical Will
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”

MeanStatesFactsCultureUnitedUnited StatesWorstConditionsFoodImportanceCookingAlcoholRestaurantsAccomplishedExpensiveExceptionFundCulinaryTelephonesVisitorsIntoxicationConjunctions
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“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.”

BelieveIdeasStatesInterestUnitedPartyEffortTeachUnited StatesEconomyEconomicPeriodsSucceedInstitutionsUnionsAcceptedEnterpriseCommunistSovietDominantEconomistSoviet UnionHostileGlobal EconomyCommunist PartyEconomic Power
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“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.”

WorldLongTwoWarCountryStatesGovernmentUnitedUnited StatesLowsCapitalismEuropeRoseVery GoodProductionsFollowingDecadesRememberedWar Of The WorldsGood TimesStableUnemploymentSecond World WarKeynes
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“Capitalism is chronically unstable.Boom and bust has always marked capitalism in the United States. There were panics in 1785, 1791, 1819, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1907, 1929 and 1987.In economies and politics, as in war, an astonishing number of people die, like the man on the railway crossing, defending their right of way. This is a poorly developed instinct in Switzerland. No country so firmly avows the principles of private enterprise but in few have the practical concessions to socialism been more numerous and varied.”

PeopleMenWayWarCountryStatesDiesUnitedNumbersPrinciplesUnited StatesEconomyHe ManCapitalismInstinctPracticalsSocialismEnterprisePanicAstonishingCrossingsUnstableRailwaySwitzerlandConcessionsPrivate Enterprise
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“The shortcomings of economics are not original error but uncorrected obsolescence. The obsolescence has occurred because what is convenient has become sacrosanct. Anyone who attacks such ideas must seem to be a trifle self-confident and even aggressive. The man who makes his entry by leaning against an infirm door gets an unjustified reputation for violence. Something is to be attributed to the poor state of the door.”

MenIdeasSelfStatesSeemsPoorViolenceDoorsHe ManEconomicsOriginalsErrorsReputationAggressiveConvenientTriflesShortcomingsEntrySelf ConfidentObsolescenceUnjustified
Book:The affluent society
Create image