John Kenneth Galbraith, (1908-2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-14] of 14 John Kenneth Galbraith quotesJohn Kenneth Galbraith QuotesJohn Kenneth Galbraith Every corner of the public psyche is canvassed by some of the most talented citizens to see if the desire for some merchandisable product can be cultivated.~ John Kenneth Galbraith The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.~ John Kenneth Galbraith These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the original parable, the bland lead the bland.~ John Kenneth Galbraith You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.~ John Kenneth Galbraith The Federal Reserve System is treated by nearly all economists with reverence. On no matter is their instruction of the young in the subtlety and benignity of established institutions more admiring-or, in broad effect, more successful. Corporations are flawed by an instinct for monopoly. Trade unions interfere with the market, urge trade restrictions, resist new technology and thus obstruct progress, and they can fall victim to extortionists and racketeers. The regulatory agencies of the government are notably imperfect instruments of economic guidance. The Federal Reserve System is not totally above criticism. It makes many mistakes but these are always interesting errors of judgment. they are examined not critically but respectfully to discover why men of insight went wrong. That for such error anyone should be sacked or even seriously rebuked is, for economists, nearly unthinkable. This approval goes back to the origins and can be highly negligent of circumstance. The most widely read account of the genesis of the System tells glowingly of its birth in the closing weeks of 1913 when the Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Wilson.~ John Kenneth Galbraith 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.~ John Kenneth Galbraith The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. With something so important, a deeper mystery seems only decent.~ John Kenneth Galbraith The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.~ John Kenneth Galbraith The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.~ John Kenneth Galbraith The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.~ John Kenneth Galbraith Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.~ John Kenneth Galbraith Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.~ John Kenneth Galbraith When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.~ John Kenneth Galbraith Under the privilege of the First Amendment many, many ridiculous things are said.~ John Kenneth Galbraith Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print