1908-, American Economist
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Leaders and Leadership]
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Revolutions and Revolutionaries]
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 – [Information]
An important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Age and Aging]
Any consideration of the life and larger social existence of the modern corporate man begins and also largely ends with the effect of one all-embracing force. That is organization — the highly structured assemblage of men, and now some women, of which he is a part. It is to this, at the expense of family, friends, sex, recreation and sometimes health and effective control of alcoholic intake, that he is expected to devote his energies.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Organization]
By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Twentieth Century]
Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Work]
Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Recession]
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Complacency]
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Institutions]
In economics the majority is always wrong.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Economy and Economics]
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Economy and Economics]
In the choice between changing one's mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Choice]
In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Power]
In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It is the narrowest decisions that are most ardently debated. If the world is lucky enough to enjoy peace, it may even one day make the discovery, to the horror of doctrinaire free-enterprisers and doctrinaire planners alike, that what is called capitalism and what is called socialism are both capable of working quite well.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Economy and Economics]
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 – [Solutions]
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put on the troubled seas of thought.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Nonsense]
It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Government]
Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Pessimism]
Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
John Kenneth Galbraith – [Meetings]