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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.

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
Though
Choice
Every
Policy
Narrowest
Good
Economic
Ardently
Decision
Debated
Courses
Usual
Public
Equally
Almost
Decisions
Choices
Certainly

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I've long believed alas, that in highly organized industrial societies, capitalist or socialist, the stronger tendency is to converge - that if steel or automobiles are wanted and must be made on a large scale, the process will stamp its imprint on the society, whether that me be Magnitogorsk or Gary, Indiana.
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The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.
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No solution [to the problem of poverty] is so effective as providing income to the poor. Whether in the form of food, housing, health services, education or money, income is an excellent antidote for deprivation. No truth has spawned so much ingenious evasion.
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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.
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Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Albert Speer, Walther Frank, Julius Streicher and Robert Ley did pass under my inspectionand interrogation in 1945 but they only proved that National Socialism was a gangster interlude at a rather low order of mental capacity and with a surprisingly high incidence of alcoholism.
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Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks.
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Who is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man?
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The inborn instability of capitalism has been part of the history of the system for several hundred years.
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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.
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It is not the individual's right to buy that is being protected. Rather, it is the seller's right to manage the individual.
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Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.
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We live surrounded by a systematic appeal to a dream world which all mature, scientific reality would reject. We, quite literally, advertise our commitment to immaturity, mendacity and profound gullibility. It is as the hallmark of the culture. And it is justified as being economically indispensable.
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If you get a reputation for being honest, you have 95 percent of the competition already beat.
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You roll back the stones, and you find slithering things. That is the world of Richard Nixon.
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All, the intelligent and stupid, diligent and idle, have been swept along on a current of increased output that, in the usual case, owed nothing whatever to their efforts.
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When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover.
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It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
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There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater.
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Inflation does not lubricate trade but by rescuing traders from their errors of optimism or stupidity.
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Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
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