John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, OCwas a Canadianeconomist, public official, and diplomat, and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s, during which time Galbraith fulfilled the role of public intellectual. As an economist, he leaned toward Post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth15 October 1908
CountryUnited States of America
John Kenneth Galbraith quotes about
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.
Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.
It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.
If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).
We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.
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.
Few people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them what they wanted.
Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.
Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.
By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.
There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.
In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.