John Kenneth Galbraith

Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, OC , Ph.D , LL.D (born October 15, 1908) is the most widely read economist of the twentieth century. The Canadian-born author of four dozen books and over one thousand articles was on the faculty of Harvard University from 1934 to 1975 (where he remains a professor emeritus). He served in the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. In 1961, Kennedy appointed him ambassador to India, where he served until 1963. Although he is a former president of the American Economic Association, Galbraith is considered something of an iconoclast by many mainstream economists because he eschews mathematical modeling in favor of non-technical political economics. He is also an "old-fashioned" Keynesian with progressive values and a gift for writing. His work includes scores of popular books on economic topics in which he describes ways in which economic theory does not always mesh with real life. Publication in 2004 of a highly praised biography, John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics has renewed widespread interest in his career and his ideas.

Quotes

• "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof."
• "If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows." - in relation to trickle-down economics
• "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
• "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
• "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."
• "If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error."
• "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."
• (Having been asked how he managed to write so much) "I wake up early, have a good breakfast, and begin."
• "Humility is not always compatible with truth."