John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes (207 quotes, page 2)

“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Letter to John F. Kennedy (2 March 1962), printed in Galbraith's Ambassador's Journal (1969)

Art

“In the first place I identify this ["the equilibrium of poverty"] with primitive agriculture, and two factors have been at work there. One is, of course, population growth. If you were a poor farmer in India, Pakistan, or in much of Africa, you would want as many sons as possible as your social security. They would keep you out of the hot sun and give you some form of subsistence in your old age. So, you have pressure for population growth that is, itself, the result of the extreme economic insecurity. This is something which hasn't been sufficiently emphasized.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Interview with John Newark (1990) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004) http://aurora.icaap.org/talks/galbraith.htm, ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield

Age , Sun

“However, it is safe to say that at the peak in 1929 the number of active speculators was less — and probably was much less — than a million.”

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 V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section V, p. 83

“Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.”

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 VII, Things Become More Serious, Section VIII, p. 130

Men , Autumn

“Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 4, Section IV, p. 45

Effort , Time

“Of all the weapons in the Federal Reserve arsenal, words were the the most unpredictable in their consequences.”

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 III, Something Should Be Done?, Section IV, p. 38

“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

The United States (1971)

World

“Both of these measures were on the side of increasing spendable income, though unfortunately they were largely without effect. The tax reductions were negligible except in the higher income brackets; businessmen who promised to maintain investment and wages, in accordance with a well-understood convention, considered the promise binding only for the period within which it was not financially disadvantageous to do so.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter IX https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Cause and Consequence, Section V, p 183
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

“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 book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXXV, Section 5, p. 398

“Only men of considerable vanity write books; consistently therewith, I worried lest the world were exchanging an irreplaceable author for a more easily purchased diplomat.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Foreword p. vii
The New Industrial State (1967)

Men , Books , World

“Foresight is an imperfect thing — all prevision in economics is imperfect.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XIX, The New Economics At High Noon, p. 269

“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 book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XIX, Section 4, p. 217

“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 book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXX, Section 7, p. 353

Stupidity , Intelligence , Effort

“Our political tradition sets great store by the generalized symbol of evil. This is the wrongdoer whose wrongdoing will be taken by the public to be the secret propensity of a whole community or class.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VIII https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Aftermath II, Section IV, p 154
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Secret , Communication , Evil

“The masters thought they were loved until one day one of their favorites farted loudly while serving dinner and the next day was gone. The very first manifestation of the classless society is the disappearance of the servant class.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 2, p. 62

Love

“Going back to the most ancient times, national well-being, the national prestige depended on territory. The more territory a country had, the more income revenue there was, the more people there were to be mobilized for arms strength. So we had an enormous sense of territorial conflict and territorial integrity, and that was unquestionably a part of the cause of war, coupled with the fact that there was a disposition in that direction by the landed class, a disposition to think of territorial acquisition and territorial defense and to think of the peasantry as a superior form of livestock which could be used for arms purposes.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Booknotes interview (1994)

War , People , Thinking , Sense

“In accordance with an old but not outworn tradition, it might now be wise for all to conclude that crime, or even misbehavior, is the act of an individual, not the predisposition of a class.”

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)

“Simple minds, presumably, are the easiest to manage.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 19, Section V, p. 218

“The decisive weakness in neoclassical and neo-Keynesian economics is not the error in the assumptions by which it elides the problem of power. The capacity for erroneous belief is very great, especially where it coincides with convenience. Rather, in eliding power — in making economics a nonpolitical subject — neoclassical theory destroys its relation to the real world. In that world, power is decisive in what happens. And the problems of that world are increasing both in number and in the depth of their social affliction. In consequence, neoclassical and neo-Keynesian economics is relegating its players to the social sidelines where they either call no plays or use the wrong ones. To change the metaphor, they manipulate levers to which no machinery is attached.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Power and the Useful Economist (1973)

World , Error , Problem , Decision

“You will find that [the] State [Department] is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Quoted in conversation with Charles Frankel, High on Foggy Bottom: an outsider's inside view of the Government (1969), p. 11

“Those who yearn for the end of capitalism should pray for government by men who believe that all positive action is inimical to what they call thoughtfully the fundamental principles of free enterprise.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XXI, Afterword, p. 312

Men

“Increasingly in recent times we have come first to identify the remedy that is most agreeable, most convenient, most in accord with major pecuniary or political interest, the one that reflects our available faculty for action; then we move from the remedy so available or desired back to a cause to which that remedy is relevant.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

"The Convenient Reverse of Logic in Our Time," commencement address, American University (1984); reprinted in A View from the Stands (1986)

Time

“He enlarged perceptibly the scope for debate, liberalized appreciably the intellectual and cultural life of the country and proclaimed the obvious truth that, after an atomic exchange, little would distinguish the Communist ashes from the capitalist ashes.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 8, p. 245 (on Nikita Khrushchev)

Life , Truth , Country

“Nothing is more portable than rich people and their money”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Attributed without source
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

Money , People

“However, Hoover had converted the simple business ritual of reassurance into a major instrument of public policy.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VIII https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Aftermath II, Section I, p 144
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Business

“Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 1, Section I, p. 13

Wealth

“In economics, unlike fiction and the theater, there is no harm in a premature disclosure of the plot: it is to see the changes just mentioned and others as an interlocked whole.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter I, Section 3, p. 6

Change

“Seaboard Air Line, which was thought by numerous innocents to provide a foothold in aviation, was another favorite, although, in fact, it was a railroad.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter IX, The Price, p. 106

“Agreeable as it is to know where one is proceeding, it is far more important to know where one has arrived.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXVIII, Section 3, p. 321

“Hitler also anticipated modern economic policy... by recognizing that a rapid approach to full employment was only possible if it was combined with wage and price controls. That a nation oppressed by economic fear would respond to Hitler as Americans did to F. D. R. is not surprising.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

As quoted in Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1991), by John Toland, also quoted in "Repatriation — The Dark Side of World War II (1995) by Jacob G. Hornberger http://www.fff.org/freedom/0795a.asp

Fear

“There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

The Guardian [UK] (23 May 1992)

Love , Parting

“The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 2, Section IV, p. 21

Wisdom , Idea

“The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 10, p. 293

“Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell.”

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 VI, The Crash, p. 104

“No one was responsible for the great Wall Street crash. No one engineered the speculation that preceded it. Both were the product of free choice and decision of hundreds of thousands of individuals.”

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 I, A Year To Remember, p. 4

Decision

“Both we and the Soviets face the common threat of nuclear destruction and there is no likelihood that either capitalism or communism will survive a nuclear war.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism (1986)

War , Communication

“You roll back the stones, and you find slithering things. That is the world of Richard Nixon.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Speech of Adlai Stevenson, Los Angeles (1956), written by Galbraith

World

“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 book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXII, Section 4, p. 255

“In the assumption that power belongs as a matter of course to capital, all economists are Marxians.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter V, Section 2, p. 49

“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 book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter VI, Section 2, p. 62

Men , Knowledge , Science

“Our political life favors the extremes of speech; the man who is gifted in the arts of abuse is bound to be a notable, if not always a great figure.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VI https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Things Become More Serious, Section II, p 110
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Life , Art

“In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading asyndicate that was driving the market down.”

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 VIII, Aftermath I, Section III, p. 141