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owning capital is not a productive activity.

Joan Robinson

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Joan Robinson
Age: 79 †
Born: 1903
Born: October 31
Died: 1983
Died: August 5
Economist
University Teacher
Camberley
Surrey
Joan Violet Robinson
Joan Violet Maurice
Money
Owning
Capital
Productive
Economics
Activity

More quotes by Joan Robinson

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Economic theorists should not make such a production about taking a rabbit out of a hat after having put the rabbit into the hat in full view of the audience.
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In all the talk in the Principles (as opposed to the formal analysis) it is not the saving of rentiers but the energy of entrepreneurs which governs accumulation.
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There is an unearthly, mystical element in Friedman's thought. The mere existence of a stock of money somehow promotes expenditure. But insofar as he offers an intelligible theory, it is made up of elements borrowed from Keynes.
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Marxism is the opium of the Marxists.
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There is no such thing as a normal period of history. Normality is a fiction of economic textbooks.
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It's a terrible thing to be a worker exploited in the capitalist system. The only worse thing is to be a worker unable to find anyone to exploit you.
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I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn’t help but question why we need the vaccine at all.
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Ideology is like breath: you never smell your own.
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The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
Joan Robinson
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The point of studying economics is so as not to be fooled by economists.
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Unemployment is a reproach to a democratic government.
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The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise.
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Income from property is not the reward of waiting, it is the reward of employing a good stockbroker.
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The very nature of economics is rooted in nationalism. ... It [was] developed ... in the hope of throwing light upon questions of policy. But policy means nothing unless there is an authority to carry it out, and authorities are national.
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Capital' is not what capital is called, it is what its name is called.
Joan Robinson
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The first essential for economists ... is to ... combat, not foster, the ideology which pretends that values which can be measured in terms of money are the only ones that ought to count.
Joan Robinson
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An economy may be in equilibrium from a short-period point of view and yet contain within itself incompatibilities that are soon going to knock it out of equilibrium.
Joan Robinson
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The fundamental differences between Marxian and traditional orthodox economics are, first, that the orthodox economists accept the capitalist system as part of the eternal order of Nature, while Marx regards it as a passing phase in the transition from the feudal economy of the past to the socialist economy of the future.
Joan Robinson
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It is much easier to organize control over one industry serving many markets than over one market served by the products of several industries.
Joan Robinson
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When I came up to Cambridge (in October 1921) to read economics, I did not have much idea of what it was about.
Joan Robinson