All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. John Kenneth Galbraith More Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith More Quotes From John Kenneth Galbraith The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith honestyintegrityphilosophy Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. John Kenneth Galbraith wittymenfunny 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. John Kenneth Galbraith oatshorsesides The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. John Kenneth Galbraith simplemindbankers There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know. John Kenneth Galbraith investingkindtwo Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. John Kenneth Galbraith home-economicsemploymentgovernment 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. John Kenneth Galbraith moneysimplemind A wrong decision isn't forever; it can always be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved. John Kenneth Galbraith decisionlossforever 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. John Kenneth Galbraith incomepovertyproblem More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. John Kenneth Galbraith funny-inspirationalweight-lossfood 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 agreementpeoplethinking Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. John Kenneth Galbraith changesweetinspirational 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. John Kenneth Galbraith moneylovemen The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. John Kenneth Galbraith motivationaljobslife Change comes not from men and women changing their minds, but from the change from one generation to the next. John Kenneth Galbraith changemenpeace The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. John Kenneth Galbraith astrologyeconomiclooks World War II revealed two of the enduring features of the Keynesian Revolution. One was the moral difference between spending for welfare and spending for war. During the Depression very modest outlays for the unemployed seemed socially debilitating, economically unsound. Now expenditures many times greater for weapons and soldiers were perfectly safe. It's a difference that still persists. John Kenneth Galbraith differenceswartwo Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths. John Kenneth Galbraith sophisticationcomplexitysimple The problem of the modern economy is not a failure of a knowledge of economics; it's a failure of a knowledge of history. John Kenneth Galbraith moderneconomicsproblem 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. John Kenneth Galbraith fashionwould-bethinking
