But, as soon as speculators become an important influence in the market, their business is to speculate on each others behaviour.
Joan RobinsonEconomic theorists should not make such a production about taking a rabbit out of a hat after having put the rabbit into the hat in full view of the audience.
Joan RobinsonEven if the crises that are looming up are overcome and a new run of prosperity lies ahead, deeper problems will still remain. Modern capitalism has no purpose except to keep the show going.
Joan RobinsonThe purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
Joan RobinsonThere is no such thing as a normal period of history. Normality is a fiction of economic textbooks.
Joan RobinsonProgress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking out errors, doctrines have a long life. A professor teaches what he was taught, and his pupils, with a proper respect and reverence for teachers, set up a resistance against his critics for no other reason than that it was he whose pupils they were.
Joan Robinson