John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) was a Canadian-born American economist and public servant. A leading scholar of the American Institutionalist school, he is one of the most famous economists of the post-World War II era.
Born in Iona Station, Ontario, and educated at the universities of Toronto, California, and Cambridge, he immigrated to the U.S. in 1931. In 1939, he became an assistant professor of economics at Princeton and held various administrative posts before becoming a professor of economics at Harvard 1949–75. He was U.S. ambassador to India 1961–63.
A Keynesian economist, Galbraith advocated government spending to stimulate the economy. He criticized American society’s obsession for consumer goods, arguing that a more significant portion of wealth should be spent on infrastructure, education, and other improvements shared by the public.
Galbraith was also known for the literary excellence of his writing on public affairs. His works include American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (1952,) The Great Crash (1955,) The Affluent Society (1958,) The Liberal Hour (1960,) The New Industrial State (1967,) The Age of Uncertainty (1977,) which was made into a BBC television series, The Anatomy of Power (1983,) The Culture of Contentment (1992,) and The Good Society (1996.)
Galbraith also wrote his autobiography, A Life in Our Times (1981.) He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice—in 1946 and 2000.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Kenneth Galbraith
There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Money
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
Topics: Leadership, Leaders, Fear, Risk
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Organization, Society
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Economics
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Reality
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Revolution
Few things are more tempting to a writer than to repeat, admiringly, what he has said before.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Writers
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.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Science
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.
—John Kenneth Galbraith
Topics: Twentieth Century
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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Philip Roth American Novelist, Short-story Writer
Daniel Kahneman American-Israeli Psychologist, Economist
Hannah Arendt German-American Political Theorist
Art Linkletter Canadian-born American Radio Personality
Albert Benjamin Simpson Canadian Protestant Preacher
Friedrich Hayek British Economist, Social Philosopher
Jacques Barzun French-born American Historian
Richard Wright American Novelist, Short-Story Writer
Abbie Hoffman American Political Activist
Steven Pinker Canadian Psychologist