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I do not regard the Keynesian revolution as a great intellectual triumph. On the contrary, it was a tragedy because it came so late. Hitler had already found out how to cure unemployment before Keynes had finished explaining why it occured.

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
Great
Finished
Explaining
Regard
Hitler
Revolution
Unemployment
Intellectual
Cure
Late
Cures
Keynesian
Already
Triumph
Occured
Came
Contrary
Keynes
Found
Tragedy
Economist

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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.
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owning capital is not a productive activity.
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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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If a rise in wages does not raise prices, a fall will not reduce them.
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Unemployment is a reproach to a democratic government.
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The point of studying economics is so as not to be fooled by economists.
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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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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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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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Unequal distribution of income is an excessively uneconomic method of getting the necessary saving done.
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A depression is a situation of self-fulfilling pessimism.
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Capital' is not what capital is called, it is what its name is called.
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Ideology is like breath: you never smell your own.
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Marxism is the opium of the Marxists.
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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.
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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.
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 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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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