Economists, on the whole, think well of what they do themselves and much less well of what their professional colleagues do.
John Kenneth GalbraithOriginality is something that is easily exaggerated, especially by authors contemplating their own work.
John Kenneth GalbraithThe real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.
John Kenneth GalbraithOne of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.
John Kenneth GalbraithIt had been held that the economic system, any capitalist system, found its equilibrium at full employment. Left to itself, it was thus that it came to rest. Idle men and idle plant were an aberration, a wholly temporary failing. Keynes showed that the modern economy could as well find its equilibrium with continuing, serious unemployment. Its perfectly normal tendency was to what economists have since come to call an underemployment equilibrium.
John Kenneth Galbraith