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In the affluent society, no useful distinction can be made between luxuries and necessities.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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John Kenneth Galbraith
Age: 97 †
Born: 1908
Born: October 15
Died: 2006
Died: April 29
Diplomat
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Politician
University Teacher
John K. Galbraith
Made
Luxuries
Affluent
Necessities
Distinction
Luxury
Useful
Wealth
Society
More quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith
I think without a doubt, that what is called financial genius is merely a rising market.
John Kenneth Galbraith
We talk of the enormous virtues of work, but it turns out that that is mostly for the poor. If you're rich enough or if you're a college professor, the virtue lies in leisure and the use you make of your leisure time.
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A point must be repeated: only the pathological weakness of the financial memory...allows us to believe that the modern experience of....debt...is in any way a new phenomenon.
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Complexity and obscurity have professional value - they are the academic equivalents of apprenticeship rules in the building trades. They exclude the outsiders, keep down the competition, preserve the image of a privileged or priestly class. The man who makes things clear is a scab. He is criticized less for his clarity than for his treachery.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The present age of contentment will come to an end only when and if the adverse developments that it fosters challenge the sense of comfortable well-being
John Kenneth Galbraith
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
In public administration good sense would seem to require that public expectation be kept at the lowest possible level in order to minimize eventual disappointment.
John Kenneth Galbraith
War remains the decisive human failure.
John Kenneth Galbraith
However, it is safe to say that at the peak in 1929 the number of active speculators was less - and probably was much less - than a million.
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In the world of minor lunacy the behaviour of both the utterly rational and the totally insane seems equally odd.
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In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.
John Kenneth Galbraith
It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In the conventional wisdom of conservatives, the modern search for security is regularly billed as the greatest single threat to economic progress.
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Talk of revolution is one of avoiding reality.
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The Senate has unlimited debate in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.
John Kenneth Galbraith
It was not hard to persuade people that the market was sound as always in such times they asked only that the dispiriting voices of doubt be muted and that there should be tolerably frequent expressions of confidence.
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One man's consumption becomes his neighbor's wish.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In economics it is a far, far wiser thing to be right than to be consistent
John Kenneth Galbraith
Faced with having to change our views or prove that there is no need to do so, most of us immediately get busy on the proof.
John Kenneth Galbraith
I never enjoyed writing a book more indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy.
John Kenneth Galbraith
