It is the business of economists, not to tell us what to do, but show why what we are doing anyway is in accord with proper principles.
Joan Robinsonscience progresses by trial and error, and when it is forbidden to admit error there can be no progress.
Joan RobinsonRosa Luxemburg maintained that the capitalist system can keep up its rate of investment (and therefore its profits) only so long as it is expanding geographically.
Joan RobinsonOne of the main effects (I will not say purposes) of orthodox traditional economics was ... a plan for explaining to the privileged class that their position was morally right and was necessary for the welfare of society.
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