James K. Galbraith Quotes (5 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

James K. Galbraith: 5 quotes0 likes

Famous James K. Galbraith Quotes

“A state that does not plan does not, by default turn this function over to the market. Even if the market is perfectly efficient, it still suffers from two ineradicable defects. The first relates to the distribution of income and power: the market conveys signals only in relation to the purchasing power of the individuals transmitting them. The poor do not matter to the market. The second relates to representation: people not yet born do not turn up at the stores. They send no market signals at all”

James K. Galbraith

Source: The Predatory State, 2008, p. 116 ; Quoted in: Trevor Manuel. " Address by the Minister in The Presidency: National Planning Commission, Trevor Manuel, at the Wits Graduate School of Public Development Management; Donald Gordon Auditorium, 26 October 2009 http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=1565" at thepresidency.gov.za, 2014.

“For Brzezinski, doing damage to Russia is a hobby.”

James K. Galbraith

James K. Galbraith, Democracy inaction, Salon.com, November 30, 2004

“The Predatory State is an economic system where entire sectors have been built up to feast upon public systems built originally for public purposes and largely serving the middle class. The corporate republic simply administers the spoils system. On a day-to-day basis, the business of its leadership is to deliver favors to their clients. These range from coal companies to sweatshop operators to military contractors.”

James K. Galbraith

Source: The Predatory State, 2008, p. 146-7

“Since the 1980s, the American business cycle has been based on financial and credit bubbles, and therefore on the enrichment, through the capital markets, of a very small number of people in a very few places. Truly we have become a 'trickle-down economy' — as we were not before. A rising tide may lift all boats, but recent business cycles have been more like waves, whereby certain sectors and areas ride the peaks before crashing to the shore. This is a sign, surely, not of the social evil of inequality per se but of the instability of bubble economies, closely associated with inequality of income, wealth, and power, for which we now pay a fearsome price.”

James K. Galbraith

James K. Galbraith (2012), Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy. p. 148; Cite in: " Muddling Towards the Next Crisis: James Kenneth Galbraith in conversation with The Straddler http://www.thestraddler.com/201310/piece2.php" at thestraddler.com, Winter 2013.

“They include the privatizers of social security and those who put the drug companies in position to profit from Medicare. Everywhere you look, regulatory functions have been turned over to lobbyists. Everywhere you look, public decisions yield gains to specific private persons. Everywhere you look, the public decision is made by the agent of a private party for the purpose of delivering private gain. This is not an accident: it is a system.”

James K. Galbraith

Source: The Predatory State, 2008, p. 147