John Kenneth Galbraith: Trending quotes (page 10)

“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 book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXXV, Section 3, p. 394

“Moreover, regulatory bodies, like the people who comprise them, have a marked life cycle. In youth they are vigorous, aggressive, evangelistic, and even intolerant. Later they mellow, and in old age — after a matter of ten or fifteen years — they become, with some exceptions, either an arm of the industry they are regulating or senile.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VIII https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Aftermath II, Section VI, p 165
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Life , People , Youth , Age

“It's a rule worth having in mind. Income almost always flows along the same axis as power but in the opposite direction.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 1, p. 13

“There was something superficial in attributing anything so awful as the Great Depression to anything so insubstantial as speculation in common stocks.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XIV, When The Money Stopped, p. 183-184.

“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

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter I, Money, p. 5

Money , Truth , Study

“But there is merit even in the mentally retarded legislator. He asks the questions that everyone is afraid to ask for fear of seeming simple.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 12, p. 328

Fear , Question

“The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations… But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

The Guardian [UK] (23 May 1992)

“The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 18, Section II, p. 201

Wealth

“I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists. After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Booknotes interview (1994)

Life , Intelligence , Personality

“At best, in such depression times, monetary policy is a feeble reed on which to lean.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter X, Cause and Consequence, p. 190

Time

“What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the state of trade would have to improve.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XVI, The Coming of J.M. Keynes, p. 217

Money

“By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter III, Section 5, p. 32

Age

“Very important functions can be performed very wastefully and often are.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 17, Section I, p. 190