“It is a popular error that bureaucracy is less flexible than private enterprise. It may be so in detail, but when large scale adaptations have to be made, central control is far more flexible. It may take two months to get an answer to a letter from a government department, but it takes twenty years for an industry under private enterprise to readjust itself to a fall in demand.”

—  Joan Robinson

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 3, Obstacles to Full Employment, p. 27 (See also: General Motors)

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Joan Robinson 46
English economist 1903–1983

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