John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

Canadian-American economist and diplomat (1908–2006)

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John Kenneth Galbraith (15 October 1908 – 29 April 2006) was a Canadian-American economist and author.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: John K. Galbraith • John Galbraith • J. K. Galbraith • Ken Galbraith

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Only in very recent times has the average man been a source of savings.

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

The inevitable counterpart of specialization is organization. This is what brings the work of specialists to a coherent result. If there are many specialists, this coordination will be a major task. So complex, indeed, will be the job of organizing specialists that there will be specialists on organization and organizations of specialists on organization. More perhaps than machinery, massive and complex business organizations are the tangible manifestation of advanced technology.

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.

No hungry man who is also sober can be persuaded to use his last dollar for anything but food.

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.

Private enterprise did not get us atomic energy.

"Poverty" Pitt exclaimed "is no disgrace but it is damned annoying." In the contemporary United States it is not annoying but it is a disgrace.

Simple minds, presumably, are the easiest to manage.

In a community wherepublic services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway.

The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.

The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air conditioned, power-steered, and power braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground.

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

It is in the long run that the corporation lives.

A businessman who reads Business Week is lost to fame. One who reads Proust is marked for greatness.