-
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 -
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 fact was that American enterprise in the twenties had opened its hospitable arms to an exceptional number of promoters, grafters, swindlers, impostors, and frauds.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
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 -
A drastic reduction in weapons competition following a general release from the commitment to the Cold War would be sharply in conflict with the needs of the industrial system.
John Kenneth Galbraith
-
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 -
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
There is wonder and a certain wicked pleasure in these giddy ascents and terrible falls, especially as they happen to other people.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.
John Kenneth Galbraith
-
Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Humor is richly rewarding to the person who employs it. It has some value in gaining and holding attention, but it has no persuasive value at all.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
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 -
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
John Kenneth Galbraith
-
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 -
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The market had reasserted itself as an impersonal force beyond the power of any person to control, and, while this is the way markets are supposed to be, it was horrible.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Because of his compassion Owen was always in trouble with his partners. They would have much preferred a tough, down-to-earth manager who would get a days work out of the little bastards.
John Kenneth Galbraith