I think that I first read "The Affluent Society" when I was 13 and working my way through every book in the house. I've had a soft spot for Galbraith ever since. It wasn't only his progressive politics that attracted me (and have probably had a deeper impact than I've realized), but his wit that I loved. In tribute to Galbraith's deep but playful mind I'm posting some of his quotes.
“It is almost as important to know what is not serious as to know what is.”Hat tip to The Green Knight for breaking the news in my universe.
On Economics
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.”
“In economics it is a far, far wiser thing to be right than to be consistent”
“In economics, the majority is always wrong.”
“Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.”
“In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.”
On Politics
“There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.”
“There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.”
“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
“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.”
“Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.”
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
“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.”
“If it is dangerous to suppose that government is always right, it will sooner or later be awkward for public administration if most people suppose that it is always wrong”
“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.”
“Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.”
“You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.”
“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.”
What is Wrong with People
“Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.”
“Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”
“There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.”
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
“The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.”
“The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.”
“In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.”
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage”
“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”
On Leadership
“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.”
“Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.”
