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Wealth Is Not Without Its Advantages And The Case To The Contrary, Although It Has Often Been Made, Has Never Proved Widely Persuasive.
-John Kenneth Galbraith
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Wealth Is Not Without

John Kenneth Galbraith
...
Wealth Is Not Without Its Advantages And The Case To The Contrary, Although It Has Often Been Made, Has Never Proved Widely Persuasive.

Understanding the Quote: "wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary,..."

This quote by John Kenneth Galbraith reflects deeply on the theme of wealth. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Wealth, Prosperity, Finance, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how John Kenneth Galbraith interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith is celebrated for insightful thoughts on wealth and prosperity. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Wealth
Prosperity
Finance
More From John Kenneth Galbraith
The Traveler To The United States Will Do Wellto Prepare Himself For The Class-consciousness Of The Natives. This Differs From The Already Familiar English Version In Being More Extreme And Based More Firmly On The Conviction That The Class To Which The Speaker Belongs Is Inherently Superior To All Others.
Class
United States
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A Very Complicated Mass Of Things Influences The Economy - The Speculative Effect, Government Policy, Consumer Borrowing And Spending, The Level Of Technical Innovation (which I Concede, Although Everyone Emphasizes It Too Much), And Much More - Including, Of Course, The Rate Of Inflation.
Government
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Wisdom... Is Often An Abstraction Associated Not With Fact Or Reality But With The Man Who Asserts It And The Manner Of Its Assertion.
Life
Reality
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Nothing In Our Time Is More Interesting Than The Erstwhile Capitalist Corporation And The Erstwhile Communist Firm Should, Under The Imperatives Of Organization, Come Together As Oligarchies Of Their Own Members.
Organization
Interesting
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The Inborn Instability Of Capitalism Has Been Part Of The History Of The System For Several Hundred Years.
Years
Hundred
Capitalism
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.
Life
Acceptance
Comfort
You Will Find That [the] State [department] Is The Kind Of Organisation Which, Though It Does Big Things Badly, Does Small Things Badly Too.
Kindness
Government
Organization
Get The Process Of Negotiation Away From The Small Specialized Group That Some People Have Called The "nuclear Theologians" ... Only A Few People Can Understand The Nature Of These Weapons ... This Kept The Whole Discussion To A Very Limited Group Of People Who, In A Way, Had Assumed Responsibility For Saying Whether We Should Live Or Die.
Responsibility
People
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I React Pragmatically. Where The Market Works, I'm For That. Where The Government Is Necessary, I'm For That. I'm Deeply Suspicious Of Somebody Who Says, 'i'm In Favor Of Privatization,' Or, 'i'm Deeply In Favor Of Public Ownership.' I'm In Favor Of Whatever Works In The Particular Case.
Government
Political
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The Complaints Of The Privileged Are Too Often Confused With The Voice Of The Masses.
Confused
Voice
Mass
In The Autumn Of 1929 The Mightiest Of Americans Were, For A Brief Time, Revealed As Human Beings.
Time
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Even In Such A Time Of Madness As The Late Twenties, A Great Many Man In Wall Street Remained Quite Sane. But They Also Remained Very Quiet. The Sense Of Responsibility In The Financial Community For The Community As A Whole Is Not Small. It Is Nearly Nil. Perhaps This Is Inherent. In A Community Where The Primary Concern Is Making Money, One Of The Necessary Rules Is To Live And Let Live. To Speak Out Against Madness May Be To Ruin Those Who Have Succumbed To It. So The Wise In Wall Street Are Nearly Always Silent. The Foolish Thus Have The Field To Themselves. None Rebukes Them.
Wise
Wall
Responsibility
It Is Not The Individual's Right To Buy That Is Being Protected. Rather, It Is The Seller's Right To Manage The Individual.
Individual
Protected
Manage
In Economics, Hope And Faith Coexist With Great Scientific Pretension And Also A Deep Desire For Respectability.
Faith
Desire
Economics
I Am Worried About Our Tendency To Over Invest In Things And Under Invest In People.
People
Worried
Tendencies
But There Is Merit Even In The Mentally Retarded Legislator. He Asks The Questions That Everyone Is Afraid To Ask For Fear Of Seeming Simple.
Simple
Merit
Retarded
The Fully Planned Economy, So Far From Being Unpopular, Is Warmly Regarded By Those Who Know It Best.
Economics
Economy
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For The Sake Of The Progressive, I Will Say That [robert] La Follette Was Relevant, But He Was The Last.
Sake
Lasts
Progressive
I've Been A Faithful Reader Of The Great Classical Documents Of Economics, Or Tried To Be.
Faithful
Economics
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In The Assumption That Power Belongs As A Matter Of Course To Capital, All Economists Are Marxians.
Matter
Assumption
Economist
One Of The Best Ways Of Avoiding Necessary And Even Urgent Tasks Is To Seem To Be Busily Employed On Things That Are Already Done.
Work
Tasks
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Economists, On The Whole, Think Well Of What They Do Themselves And Much Less Well Of What Their Professional Colleagues Do.
Thinking
Scholarship
Economist
Economic Life, As Always, Is A Matrix In Which Result Becomes Cause And Cause Becomes Result.
Causes
Economic
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All Writers Know That On Some Golden Mornings They Are Touched By The Wand; They Are On Intimate Terms With Poetry And Cosmic Truth. I Have Experienced These Moments Myself. Their Lesson Is Simple: It's A Total Illusion. And The Danger In The Illusion Is That You Will Wait For Those Moments.
Morning
Simple
Waiting
In A Community Where Public Services Have Failed To Keep Abreast Of Private Consumption Things Are Very Different. Here, In An Atmosphere Of Private Opulence And Public Squalor, The Private Goods Have Full Sway.
Community
Atmosphere
Opulence
These Are The Days When Men Of All Social Disciplines And All Political Faiths Seek The Comfortable And The Accepted; When The Man Of Controversy Is Looked Upon As A Disturbing Influence; When Originality Is Taken To Be A Mark Of Instability; And When, In Minor Modification Of The Original Parable, The Bland Lead The Bland.
Taken
Men
Discipline
In The Market Economy The Price That Is Offered Is Counted Upon To Produce The Result That Is Sought.
Economy
Results
Produce
I Accept The Global Complex And Global Trade More Than Do Some Of My Liberal Colleagues Because I Consider This A Wise Alternative To National Tension And Conflict.
Wise
Alternatives
Conflict
Under Capitalism, Man Exploits Man. Under Communism, It's Just The Opposite.
Funny
Witty
Men
You Roll Back The Stones, And You Find Slithering Things. That Is The World Of Richard Nixon.
World
Politics
Stones
I Am Not Quite Sure What The Advantage Is In Having A Few More Dollars To Spend If The Air Is Too Dirty To Breathe, The Water Too Polluted To Drink, The Commuters Are Losing Out In The Struggle To Get In And Out Of The City, The Streets Are Filthy, And The Schools So Bad That The Young Perhaps Wisely Stay Away, And The Hoodlums Roll Citizens For Some Of The Dollars They Saved In The Tax Cut.
Dirty
Struggle
School
We Have Escapist Fiction, So Why Not Escapist Biography?
Biographies
Why Not
Fiction
Clerks In Downtown Hotels Were Said To Be Asking Guests Whether They Wished The Room For Sleeping Or Jumping. Two Men Jumped Hand-in-hand From A High Window In The Ritz. They Had A Joint Account.
Sleep
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Economists Are Generally Negligent Of Their Heroes.
Hero
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To See Economic Policy As A Problem Of Choice Between Rival Ideologies Is The Greatest Error Of Our Time.
Errors
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Talk Of Revolution Is One Of Avoiding Reality.
Reality
Revolution
Avoiding
There Is Something Wonderful In Seeing A Wrong-headed Majority Assailed By Truth.
Majority
Politics
Wonderful
There Can Be Few Fields Of Human Endeavor In Which History Counts For So Little As In The World Of Finance.past Experience, To The Extent That It Is Part Of Memory At All, Is Dismissed As The Primitive Refuge Of The Those Who Do Not Have Insight To Appreciate The Incredible Wonders Of The Present.
Memories
Past
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The Privileged Have Regularly Invited Their Own Destruction With Their Greed.
Greed
Investing
Destruction
There Is Little That Can Be Said About Most Economic Goods. A Toothbrush Does Little But Clean Teeth. Aspirin Does Little But Dull Pain. Alcohol Is Important Mostly For Making People More Or Less Drunk ... There Being So Little To Be Said, Much Is To Be Invented.
Pain
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The Threat To Men Of Great Dignity, Privilege And Pretense Is Not From The Radicals They Revile; It Is From Accepting Their Own Myth. Exposure To Reality Remains The Nemesis Of The Great -- A Little Understood Thing.
Reality
Men
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One Must Always Have In Mind One Simple Fact - There Is No Literate Population In The World That Is Poor, And There Is No Illiterate Population That Is Anything But Poor.
Simple
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The Power Of The Corporate Bureaucracy - The Power Of Technostructure (a Term That Did Not Take Off) - Is Something To Which I Still Adhere.
Bureaucracy
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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.
Long
Stronger
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A More Important Antidote To American Democracy Is American Gerontocracy. The Positions Of Eminence And Authority In Congress Are Allotted In Accordance With Length Of Service, Regardless Of Quality.
Democracy
Important
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I Talked About The Consolidation Of Power In The Hands Of The Corporate Bureaucracy, As Distinct From The Stockholders. To This View, I Still Strongly Adhere.
Views
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The Individual Serves The Planning System Not By Supplying It With Savings And The Resulting Capital; He Serves It Far More By Consuming Its Products.
Saving
Individual
Consumerism
It Takes A Certain Brashness To Attack The Accepted Economic Legendsbut Noneat All Toperpetuatethem. So Theyare Perpetuated.
Economic
Accepted
Certain
Money Differs From An Automobile Or Mistress In Being Equally Important To Those Who Have It And Those Who Do Not.
Money
Mistress
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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.
Government
People
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The Massive Reduction In Risk That Is Inherent In The Development Of The Modern Corporation Has Been Far From Fully Appreciated.
Risk
Development
Corporations
There's A Certain Part Of The Contented Majority Who Love Anybody Who Is Worth A Billion Dollars.
Love
Political
Majority
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.
Thoughtful
People
Use
Wealth Is Not Without Its Advantages And The Case To The Contrary, Although It Has Often Been Made, Has Never Proved Widely Persuasive.
Wealth
Prosperity
Finance
Pundits Forecast Not Because They Know, But Because They Are Asked.
Investing
Pundits
Knows
Only In Very Recent Times Has The Average Man Been A Source Of Savings.
Men
Average
Saving
One Of The Little-celebrated Powers Of Presidents (and Other High Government Officials) Is To Listen To Their Critics With Just Enough Sympathy To Ensure Their Silence.
Sympathy
Government
Silence
Some Things Were Never Meant To Be Recycled.
Politics
Recycled
Some Things Are Meant To Be
It Is Almost As Important To Know What Is Not Serious As To Know What Is.
Important
Serious
Knows
The Seminar In Economic Theory Conducted By Hayek At The L.s.e. In The 1930s Was Attended, It Came To Seem, By All Of The Economists Of My Generation - Nicky Kaldor , Thomas Balogh, L. K. Jah, Paul Rosenstein-rodan, The List Could Be Indefinitely Extended. The Urge To Participate (and Correct Hayek) Was Ruthlessly Competitive.
Generations
Lists
Hayek
Ideas Do Not Respect National Frontiers, And This Is Especially So Where Language And Other Traditions Are In Common.
Ideas
Common
Language
Much Literary Criticism Comes From People For Whom Extreme Specialization Is A Cover Either For Grave Cerebral Inadequacy Or Terminal Laziness, The Latter Being A Much-cherished Aspect Of Academic Freedom.
Freedom
People
Criticism
The Accepted Ideas Of Any Period Are Singularly Those That Serve The Dominant Economic Interest...what Economists Believe And Teach, Whether In The United States Or In The Soviet Union, Is Rarely Hostile To The Institutions - The Private Business Enterprise, The Communist Party - That Reflect The Dominant Economic Power. Not To Notice This Takes Effort, Although Many Succeed.
Party
Believe
Ideas
Foreign Policy Is Conducted For The Convenience And Enjoyment Of People In Washington.
People
Politics
Convenience
Few Can Believe That Suffering, Especially By Others, Is In Vain. Anything That Is Disagreeable Must Surely Have Beneficial Economic Effects.
Believe
Suffering
Economics
In Economics It Is A Far, Far Wiser Thing To Be Right Than To Be Consistent
Economics
Consistent
Wiser
We Are Becoming The Servants In Thought, As In Action Of The Machine We Have Created To Serve Us.
Machines
Becoming
Action
Any Country That Has Milton Friedman As An Adviser Has Nothing To Fear From A Few Million Arabs.
Country
Milton
Adviser
Foresight Is An Imperfect Thing - All Prevision In Economics Is Imperfect.
Imperfect Things
Economics
Foresight
In The United States, Though Power Corrupts, The Expectation Of Power Paralyzes.
Power
Expectations
United States
If You're Rich You Can Buy Books. If You're Poor, You Need A Library.
Book
Library
Needs
No Intelligence System Can Predict What A Government Will Do If It Doesn't Know Itself.
Government
Knows
Ifs
Change Comes Not From Men And Women Changing Their Minds, But From The Change From One Generation To The Next.
Change
Peace
Men
I Predict, Not Because I Know, But Because I'm Asked.
Knows
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.
Business
Awards
Achievement
The Charge That An Idea Is Radical, Impractical, Or Long- Haired Is Met By Showing That A Prominent Businessman Has Favored It?an Additional Tactic In This Strategy Of Defense?is To Assert That Winston Churchill Once Sponsored The Particular Idea. If One Is Challenged, A Sufficiently Careful Investigation Will Show That He Did.
Ideas
Long
Defense
People Are The Common Denominator Of Progress. So No Improvement Is Possible With Unimproved People, And Advance Is Certain When People Are Liberated And Educated. It Would Be Wrong To Dismiss The Importance Of Roads, Railroads, Power Plants, Mills,and The Other Familiar Furniture Of Economic Development. But We Are Coming To Realize That There Is A Certain Sterility In Economic Monuments That Stand Alone In A Sea Of Illiteracy. Conquest Of Illiteracy Comes First.
Education
Sea
People
Agreeable As It Is To Know Where One Is Proceeding, It Is Far More Important To Know Where One Has Arrived.
Important
Knows
Proceeding
There Is An Insistent Tendency Among Serious Social Scientists To Think Of Any Institution Which Features Rhymed And Singing Commercials, Intense And Lachrymose Voices Urging Highly Improbable Enjoyment, Caricatures Of The Human Esophagus In Normal And Impaired Operation, And Which Hints Implausibly At Opportunities For Antiseptic Seduction As Inherently Trivial. This Is A Great Mistake. The Industrial System Is Profoundly Dependent On Commercial Television And Could Not Exist In Its Present Form Without It.
Mistake
Science
Opportunity
Where Humor Is Concerned There Are No Standards - No One Can Say What Is Good Or Bad, Although You Can Be Sure That Everyone Will.
Humorous
Standards
Humour
But It Can Be Laid Down As A Rule That Those Who Speak Most Of Liberty Are Least Inclined To Use It.
Liberty
Use
Speak
The Ideas By Which People . . . Interpret Their Existence And In Measure Guide Their Behavior, Were Not Forged In A World Of Wealth.
Ideas
People
World
There Is An Enormous Thrust In Our Time To Have A Simple Answer. And That Simple Answer Is That All Depends On Alan Greenspan And The Federal Reserve. And Alan, Who Is An Old Acquaintance Of Mine, Is A Marvelous Performer In The Impression He Gives Of Enormously Great Perception.
Simple
Giving
Perception
Third Party Politics, At Least Since La Follette, Has Always Had An Element Of Romance.
Party
Romance
Elements
Consumer Wants Can Have Bizarre, Frivolous, Or Even Immoral Origins, And An Admirable Case Can Still Be Made For A Society That Seeks To Satisfy Them. But The Case Cannot Stand If It Is The Process Of Satisfying Wants That Create The Wants.
Want
Bizarre
Made
In Economics, The Majority Is Always Wrong.
Inspirational
Majority
Investing
No Politician Can Praise Unemployment Or Inflation, And There Is No Way Of Combining High Employment With Stable Prices That Does Not Involve Some Control Of Income And Prices. Otherwise The Struggle For More Consumption And More Income To Sustain It-a Struggle That Modern Corporations, Modern Unions And Modern Democracy All Facilitate And Encourage-will Drive Up Prices. Only Heavy Unemployment Will Then Temper This Upward Thrust. Not Many Wish To Confront The Truth That The Modern Economy Gives A Choice Only Between Inflation, Unemployment, Or Controls.
Struggle
Giving
Choices
Who Is King In The World Of The Blind When There Isn't Even A One Eyed Man?
Kings
Men
World
Marx Profoundly Affected Those Who Did Not Accept His System. His Influence Extended To Those Who Least Supposed They Were Subject To It.
Influence
Accepting
Subjects
Had The Bible Been In Clear Straightforward Language, Had The Ambiguities And Contradictions Been Edited Out, And Had The Language Been Constantly Modernised To Accord With Contemporary Taste It Would Almost Certainly Have Been, Or Become, A Work Of Lesser Influence.
Atheism
Taste
Language
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. If The World Is Lucky Enough To Enjoy Peace, It May Even One Day Make The Discovery, To The Horror Of Doctrinaire Free-enterprisers And Doctrinaire Planners Alike, That What Is Called Capitalism And What Is Called Socialism Are Both Capable Of Working Quite Well.
Peace
Discovery
Choices
Mr. David Stockman Has Said That Supply-side Economics Was Merely A Cover For The Trickle-down Approach To Economic Policy — What An Older And Less Elegant Generation Called The Horse-and-sparrow Theory: If You Feed The Horse Enough Oats, Some Will Pass Through To The Road For The Sparrows.
Horse
Oats
Sides
While It Will Be Desirable To Achieve Planned Results, It Will Be Even More Important To Avoid Unplanned Disasters.
Important
Achieve
Disaster
The Overall Effect Of The Rise Of The Industrial System Is Greatly To Reduce The Union As A Social Force. But It Will Not Disappear Or Become Entirely Unimportant.
Unions
Disappear
Social
Financial Capacity And Political Perspicacity Are Inversely Correlated. Long-run Salvation By Men Of Business Has Never Been Highly Regarded If It Means Disturbance Of Orderly Life And Convenience In The Present. So Inaction Will Be Advocated In The Present Even Though It Means Deep Trouble In The Future. Here, At Least Equally With Communism, Lies The Threat To Capitalism. It Is What Causes Men Who Know That Things Are Going Quite Wrong To Say That Things Are Fundamentally Sound.
Running
Lying
Mean
Monetary Policy Suffers From The Unfortunate Absence Of Any Occult Effect. It Has Long Been Clear That Economic Management...would Be Greatly Facilitated If Resort Could Occasionally Be Had To Witchcraft.
Long
Suffering
Would Be
I Was Brought Up In Southwestern Ontario Where We Were Taught That Canadian Patriotism Should Not Withstand Anything More Than A Five-dollar-a-month Wage Differential. Anything More Than That And You Went To Detroit.
Ontario
Dollars
Months
Broadly Speaking, Keynesianism Means That The Government Has A Specific Responsibility For The Behavior Of The Economy, That It Doesn't Work On Its Own Autonomous Course, But The Government, When There's A Recession, Compensates By Employment, By Expansion Of Purchasing Power, And In Boom Times Corrects By Being A Restraining Force. But It Controls The Great Flow Of Demand Into The Economy, What Since Keynesian Times Has Been The Flow Of Aggregate Demand. That Was The Basic Idea Of Keynes So Far As One Can Put It In A Couple Of Sentences.
Couple
Mean
Responsibility
We Now In The United States Have More Security Guards For The Rich Than We Have Police Services For The Poor Districts. If You're Looking For Personal Security, Far Better To Move To The Suburbs Than To Pay Taxes In New York.
New York
Moving
Security Guards
Money Is What Fueled The Industrial Society. But In The Informational Society, The Fuel, The Power, Is Knowledge. One Has Now Come To See A New Class Structure Divided By Those Who Have Information And Those Who Must Function Out Of Ignorance. This New Class Has Its Power Not From Money, Not From Land, But From Knowledge.
Ignorance
Land
Class
Few Economic Problems, If Any, Are Difficult Of Solution. The Difficulty, All But Invariably, Is In Confronting Them. We Know What Needs To Be Done; For Reasons Of Inertia, Pecuniary Interest, Passion Or Ignorance, We Do Not Wish To Say So.
Ignorance
Passion
Wish
All Successful Revolutions Are The Kicking In Of A Rotten Door.
Inspiration
Successful
Doors
I Am For A Close Global Association In Trade And Financial Matters, Rather Than The Opposite Possibility Of Excessive Nationalism, As Manifested In The Two World Wars.
War
Two
Opposites
No Grant Of Feudal Privilege Has Ever Equaled, For Effortless Return, That Of The Grandparent Who Bought And Endowed His Descendants With A Thousand Shares Of General Motors Or General Electric.
Grandparent
Return
Privilege
Men Will Look Back In Amusement At The Pretence That Once Caused People To Refer To General Dynamics And North American Aviation And At&t As Private Business.
Men
People
Looks
In Numerous Years Following The War, The Federal Government Ran A Heavy Surplus. It Could Not (however) Pay Off Its Debt, Retire Its Securities, Because To Do So Meant There Would Be No Bonds To Back The National Bank Notes. To Pay Off The Debt Was To Destroy The Money Supply.
Money
War
Government
All Crises Have Involved Debt That, In One Fashion Or Another, Has Become Dangerously Out Of Scale In Relation To The Underlying Means Of Payment.
Fashion
Mean
Debt
If You Feed Enough Oats To The Horse, Some Will Pass Through To Feed The Sparrows (referring To "trickle Down" Economics).
Horse
Oats
Sparrows
Franklin Delano Roosevelt And J.f Kennedy Were Presidents In Very Different Times.
President
Different
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
One Of The Greatest Pieces Of Economic Wisdom Is To Know What You Do Not Know.
Wisdom
Knowledge
Pieces
We All Agree That Pessimism Is A Mark Of Superior Intellect.
Agreement
Pessimism
Mark
Nothing So Denies A Person Liberty As The Total Absence Of Money.
Liberty
Absence
Deny
Ideas May Be Superior To Vested Interest. They Are Also Very Often The Children Of Vested Interest.
Children
Ideas
May
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.
Numbers
Safe
Active
Let’s Begin With Capitalism, A Word That Has Gone Largely Out Of Fashion. The Approved Reference Now Is To The Market System. This Shift Minimizes - Indeed, Deletes - The Role Of Wealth In The Economic And Social System. And It Sheds The Adverse Connotation Going Back To Marx. Instead Of The Owners Of Capital Or Their Attendants In Control, We Have The Admirably Impersonal Role Of Market Forces. It Would Be Hard To Think Of A Change In Terminology More In The Interest Of Those To Whom Money Accords Power. They Have Now A Functional Anonymity.
Fashion
Thinking
Would Be
Economists Are Economical, Among Other Things, Of Ideas; Most Make Those Of Their Graduate Days Do For A Lifetime.
Wisdom
Ideas
Politics
What Is Called A High Standard Of Living Consists, In Considerable Measure, In Arrangements For Avoiding Muscular Energy, For Increasing Sensual Pleasure And Enhancing Caloric Intake Above Any Conceivable Nutritional Requirement.
Success
Sensual
Energy
I've Become Accustomed To Supporting Politicians Who Are More Conservative Than I Am. This Is Not Entirely A Surprise.
Conservative
Surprise
Politician
Those Who Had Been Riding The Upward Wave Decide Now Is The Time To Get Out. Those Who Thought The Increase Would Be Forever Find Their Illusion Destroyed Abruptly, And They, Also, Respond To The Newly Revealed Reality By Selling Or Trying To Sell. And Thus The Rule, Supported By The Experience Of Centuries: The Speculative Episode Always Ends Not With A Whimper But With A Bang.
Reality
Forever
Trying
The Real Accomplishment Of Modern Science And Technology Consists In Taking Ordinary Men, Informing Them Narrowly And Deeply And Then, Through Appropriate Organization, Arranging To Have Their Knowledge Combined With That Of Other Specialized But Equally Ordinary Men. This Dispenses With The Need For Genius. The Resulting Performance, Though Less Inspiring, Is Far More Predictable.
Real
Science
Technology
When You See Reference To A New Paradigm You Should Always, Under All Circumstances, Take Cover. Because Ever Since The Great Tulipmania In 1637, Speculation Has Always Been Covered By A New Paradigm. There Was Never A Paradigm So New And So Wonderful As The One That Covered John Law And The South Sea Bubble - Until The Day Of Disaster.
Sea
Law
Wonderful
Modesty Is A Vastly Overrated Virtue.
Modesty
Virtue
Economy
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.
Memories
Believe
Weakness
With The American Failure Came World Failure.
World
Why Is Anything Intrinsically So Valueless So Obviously Desirable?
Desirable
Valueless
No Hungry Man Who Is Also Sober Can Be Persuaded To Use His Last Dollar For Anything But Food.
Men
Dollars
Use
Good Writing, And This Is Especially Important In A Subject Such As Economics, Must Also Involve The Reader In The Matter At Hand. It Is Not Enough To Explain. The Images That Are In The Mind Of The Writer Must Be Made To Reappear In The Mind Of The Reader, And It Is The Absence Of This Ability That Causes Much Economic Writing To Be Condemned, Quite Properly, As Abstract.
Writing
Hands
Mind
Very Important Functions Can Be Performed Very Wastefully And Often Are.
Important
Function
A Person Buying Ordinary Products In A Supermarket Is In Touch With His Deepest Emotions.
Ordinary
Buying
Emotion
It Is A Well Known And Very Important Fact That America's Founding Fathers Did Not Like Taxation Without Representation. It Is A Lesser Known And Equally Important Fact That They Did Not Much Like Taxation With Representation.
Father
America
Important
Economic Theory Is The Most Prestigious Subject Of Instruction And Study. Agricultural Economics, Labor Economics And Marketing Are Lower Caste Fields Of Study.
Marketing
Fields
Study
The Modern Corporation Must Manufacture Not Only Goods But The Desire For The Goods It Manufactures.
Business
Desire
Corporations
Of Late I Have Searched Diligently To Discover The Advantages Of Age, And There Is, I Have Concluded, Only One. It Is That Lovely Women Treat Your Approaches With Understanding Rather Than With Disdain.
Understanding
Lovely
Age
No Society Ever Seems To Have Succumbed To Boredom. Man Has Developed An Obvious Capacity For Surviving The Pompous Reiteration Of The Commonplace.
Men
Boredom
Capacity
I'm Certainly Going To Support Al Gore Because, On The Whole, He's The More Sensible Figure And You Vote Not For The Perfect But For The Best. Coupled With That Is A Special Situation.
Perfect
Support
Special
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.
Stupid
Intelligent
Effort
The Line Dividing The State From What Is Called Private Enterprise, Orat Least Fromthehighlyorganized Part Of It, Is A Traditional Fiction.
Fiction
Lines
States
It Was Herbert Spencer, Not Charles Darwin, Who Coined The Phrase Survival Of The Fittest.
Survival
Phrases
Survival Of The Fittest
A Drastic Reduction In Weapons Competition Following A General Release From The Commitment To The Cold War Would Be Sharply In Conflict With The Needs Of The Industrial System.
War
Commitment
Competition
In Any Great Organization It Is Far, Far Safer To Be Wrong With The Majority Than To Be Right Alone.
Organization
Political
Majority
When Everything Else Failed, We Can Still Become Immortal By Making An Enormous Blunder.
Death
Suicide
Enormous
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.
Government
Views
Class
I Would Put Primary Emphasis On A Good Standard Of Living Equitably Distributed. It Can't Be Equal, But One That Eliminates The Terrible Cruelty Of Poverty.
Poverty
Emphasis
Standards
The Drive Toward Complex Technical Achievement Offers A Clue To Why The U.s. Is Good At Space Gadgetry And Bad At Slum Problems.
Technology
Space
Achievement
American University Presidents Are A Nervous Breed; I Have Never Thought Well Of Them As A Class.
Class
President
American Universities
Originality Is Something That Is Easily Exaggerated, Especially By Authors Contemplating Their Own Work.
Originality
Contemplating
Exaggerated
The Size Of General Motors Is In The Service Not Of Monopoly Or The Economies Of Scale But Of Planning.
Size
Planning
Economy
Technology Means The Systematic Application Of Scientific Or Other Organized Knowledge To Practical Tasks.
Wisdom
Knowledge
Mean
When You See Reference To A New Paradigm You Should Always, Under All Circumstances, Take Cover.
Should
Circumstances
Paradigm
Few Things In Life Can Be So Appalling As The Difference Between A Dry Antiseptic Statement Of A Principle By A Well Spoken Man In A Quiet Office, And What Happens To People When That Principle Is Put Into Practice.
Men
Practice
Things In Life
A Nuclear War Does Not Defend A Country And It Does Not Defend A System. I've Put It The Same Way Many Times; Not Even The Most Accomplished Ideologue Will Be Able To Tell The Difference Between The Ashes Of Capitalism And The Ashes Of Communism.
Country
War
Differences
Any Consideration Of The Life And Larger Social Existence Of The Modern Corporate Man Begins And Also Largely Ends With The Effect Of One All-embracing Force. That Is Organization - The Highly Structured Assemblage Of Men, And Now Some Women, Of Which He Is A Part. It Is To This, At The Expense Of Family, Friends, Sex, Recreation And Sometimes Health And Effective Control Of Alcoholic Intake, That He Is Expected To Devote His Energies.
Sex
Men
Organization
The Process By Which Banks Create Money Is So Simple That The Mind Is Repelled.
Simple
Mind
Bankers
Economic Stimulation That Works Through The Increased Outlays To The Affluent Has, Inevitably, An Aspect Of Soundness And Sanity That Is Lacking In Expenditure On Behalf Of The Undeserving Poor.
Sanity
Economic
Poor
We Can Safely Abandon The Doctrine Of The Eighties, Namely That The Rich Were Not Working Because They Had Too Little Money, The Poor Because They Had Much.
Money
Doctrine
Littles
Wealth, In Even The Most Improbable Cases, Manages To Convey The Aspect Of Intelligence.
Wealth
Prosperity
Finance
According To The Experience Of All But The Most Accomplished Jugglers, It Is Easier To Keep One Ball In The Air Than Many.
Air
Public Opinion
Balls
Under The Privilege Of The First Amendment Many, Many Ridiculous Things Are Said.
Firsts
Civil Rights
Privilege
Much Discussion Of Money Involves A Heavy Overlay Of Priestly Incantation.
Heavy
Discussion
There Are Days When The Result Is So Bad That No Fewer Than Five Revisions Are Required. In Contrast, When I'm Greatly Inspired, Only Four Revisions Are Needed.
Writing
Four
Revision
Superficial Observers Have Long Criticized The United States For Making A Fetish Of Youth. This Is Unfair. Uniquely Among Modern Organs Of Public And Private Administration, Its National Legislature Rewards Senility.
Long
United States
Rewards
Ideas Are Inherently Conservative. They Yield Not To The Attack Of Other Ideas But To The Massive Onslaught Of Circumstance With Which They Cannot Contend.
Past
Yield
Ideas
By All But The Pathologically Romantic, It Is Now Recognized That This Is Not The Age Of The Small Man.
Birthday
Men
Age
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.
Choices
Decision
Usual
I Think The Role Of The Federal Reserve Is Enormously Exaggerated.
Thinking
Roles
Federal Reserve
Speeches In Our Culture Are The Vacuum That Fills A Vacuum.
Vacuums
Culture
Oratory
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.
Lying
College
Leisure
There's No Question That In My Lifetime, The Contrast Between What I Called Private Affluence And Public Squalor Has Become Very Much Greater. What Do We Worry About? We Worry About Our Schools. We Worry About Our Public Recreational Facilities. We Worry About Our Law Enforcement And Our Public Housing. All Of The Things That Bear Upon Our Standard Of Living Are In The Public Sector.
School
Law
Worry
We're All Subject To The Daily Pressures Of Consumer Persuasion.
Pressure
Persuasion
Consumers
There Is No Name For All Who Participate In Group Decision-making Or The Organization Which They Form. I Propose To Call This Organization The Technostructure.
Names
Organization
Decision
The Myth That Holds That The Great Corporation Is The Puppet Of The Market, The Powerless Servant Of The Consumer, Is, In Fact One Of The Devices By Which Its Power Is Perpetuated.
Puppets
Corporations
Facts
In The Early Days Of The Crash It Was Widely Believed That Jesse L. Livermore, A Bostonian With A Large And Unquestionably Exaggerated Reputation For Bear Operations, Leading A Syndicate That Was Driving The Market Down.
Bears
Reputation
Driving
If We Are Concerned About Our Great Appetite For Materials, It Is Plausible To Decrease Waste, To Make Better Use Of Stocks Available, And To Develop Substitutes. But What About The Appetite Itself? The Major Cause Of The Continued Deterioration Of The Global Environment Is The Unsustainable Pattern Of Consumption And Production, Particularly In Industrialised Countries
Country
Deterioration
Use
Both We And The Soviets Face The Common Threat Of Nuclear Destruction And There Is No Likelihood That Either Capitalism Or Communism Will Survive A Nuclear War.
War
Faces
Nuclear
Nostalgia Combines Regularly With Manifest Respectability To Give Credence To Old Error As Opposed To New Truth.
Past
Errors
Giving
Nothing Is More Portable Than Rich People And Their Money
People
Rich
Rich People
In The World Of Minor Lunacy The Behaviour Of Both The Utterly Rational And The Totally Insane Seems Equally Odd.
Insane
Behaviour
World
It's Much Easier To Point Out The Problem Than It Is To Say Just How It Should Be Solved.
Problem
Easier
Should
The Sense Of Responsibility In The Financial Community For The Community As A Whole Is Not Small. It Is Nearly Nil.
Responsibility
Community
Financial
Of All The Weapons In The Federal Reserve Arsenal, Words Were The The Most Unpredictable In Their Consequences.
Weapons
Unpredictable
Federal Reserve
Few Things Are As Immutable As The Addiction Of Political Groups To The Ideas By Whichthey Have Once Won Office.
Ideas
Addiction
Office
We Shall Have A Race Of Men Who Are Strong On Telemetry And Space Communications But Who Cannot Read Anything But A Blueprint Or Write Anything But A Computer Program.
Strong
Communication
Writing
Unemployment Is Rarely Considered Desirable Except By Those Who Have Not Experienced It.
Work
Unemployment
Desirable
I React To What Is Necessary. I Would Like To Eschew Any Formula.
Formulas
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.
Political
Politics
Accomplished
The Metropolis Should Have Been Aborted Long Before It Became New York, London Or Tokyo.
New York
Should Have
Cities
In 1736, Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette Printed An Apology For Its Irregular Appearence Because Its Printer Was "with The Press, Labouring For The Publick Good, To Make Money More Plentiful." The Press Was Busy Printing Money.
Apology
Printing Money
Pennsylvania
The Enemy Of The Conventional Wisdom Is Not Ideas But The March Of Events.
Ideas
Enemy
Events
Money Is A Singular Thing. It Ranks With Love As Man's Greatest Source Of Joy. And With Death As His Greatest Source Of Anxiety. Over All History It Has Oppressed Nearly All People In One Of Two Ways: Either It Has Been Abundant And Very Unreliable, Or Reliable And Very Scarce.
Love
Money
Men
I've Been Writing A Book Called The Economics Of Innocent Fraud. I Published Part Of It Already In The Progressive ("free Market Fraud," January 1999). But I've Been Interrupted These Last Few Months. It Deals With All Of The Things We Do, In An Innocent Way, To Cover Up The Truth.
Book
Writing
Way
The American Colonies, All Know, Were Greatly Opposed To Taxation Without Representation. They Were Also, A Less Celebrated Quality, Equally Opposed To Taxation With Representation.
Quality
Taxation Without Representation
Taxes
The Greater The Wealth The Thicker Will Be The Dirt.
Political
Politics
Dirt
The Man Who Is Admired For The Ingenuity Of His Larceny Is Almost Always Rediscovering Some Earlier Form Of Fraud. The Basic Forms Are All Known, Have All Been Practiced. The Manners Of Capitalism Improve. The Morals May Not.
Men
Investing
May
When People Put Their Ballots In The Boxes, They Are, By That Act, Inoculated Against The Feeling That The Government Is Not Theirs. They Then Accept, In Some Measure, That Its Errors Are Their Errors, Its Aberrations Their Aberrations, That Any Revolt Will Be Against Them. It's A Remarkably Shrewd And Rather Conservative Arrangement When One Thinks Of It.
Thinking
Errors
Democracies Have
It Is A Commonplace Of Modern Technology That Problems Have Solutions Before There Is Knowledge Of How They Are To Be Solved.
Technology
Problem
Modern
Men Have Been Swindled By Other Men On Many Occasions. The Autumn Of 1929 Was, Perhaps, The First Occasion When Men Succeeded On A Large Scale In Swindling Themselves.
Autumn
Men
Firsts
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.
Economic
Economy
States
It Is The Good Fortune Of The Affluent Country That The Opportunity Cost Of Economic Discussion Is Low And Hence It Can Afford All Kinds.
Country
Opportunity
Cost
The Study Of Money, Above All Other Fields In Economics, Is One In Which Complexity Is Used To Disguise Truth Or To Evade Truth, Not To Reveal It. The Process By Which Banks Create Money Is So Simple The Mind Is Repelled.
Money
Simple
Mind
Then Came The Second Amsterdam Discovery, Although The Principle Was Known Elsewhere. Bank Deposits...did Not Need To Be Left Idly In The Bank. They Could Be Lent. The Bank Then Got Interest. The Borrower Then Had A Deposit That He Could Spend. But The Original Deposit Still Stood To The Credit Of The Original Depositor. That Too Could Be Spent. Money, Spendable Money, Had Been Created. Let No One Rub His Or Her Eyes. It's Still Being Done-every Day. The Creation Of Money By A Bank Is As Simple As This, So Simple, I've Often Said, That The Mind Is Slightly Repelled.
Eye
Simple
Discovery
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