John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network.

I hate to see a young man get ahead on the basis of a famous family name.

You might get one job for having a famous parent, but you won't get your second unless you're good.

I never wanted anyone to think that I would use my family name to get me anywhere.

I am not in favour of quotas. Just put the best person into the job. It is not about gender; it is about experience, leadership and vision.

I'm not out for quotas. I'm out to attract the best young men and women of our nation.

A person should not have a second class life because he chose the wrong parents.

The Civil Service is a self-perpetuating oligarchy, and what better system is there?

It is also absolutely necessary that the examinations should be competitive, and the appointments given to those who are most successful. A mere pass examination never, in the long run, does more than exclude absolute dunces.

Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person?

Government posts are for sale, preventing some poor people with abilities from serving in those positions.

As long as inheritance lasts, there will be hereditary economic inequality—not the natural inequality of individuals, but the artificial inequality of classes—which will necessarily continue to be expressed in hereditary inequality of the development and cultivation of intelligence and will remain the source and sanction of all political and social inequality.

I had rather wise men to govern me, even though at times they should be severe, even fools. I care not where they come from, so they be men of sense and experience; let them be taken from the plough, from the mechanick’s bench, or from behind the counter.

The typical white intellectual considers himself superior to ordinary white people for two contradictory reasons: a) he constantly proclaims belief in human equality, but they don't ; b) he has a high IQ, but they don't.

No politics, no committees, no reports, no referees, no interviews – just highly motivated people picked by a few men of good judgment.

I don’t really think that as a society we want to confer blessings on generations after generations who contribute nothing to society simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth.

I've come to the conclusion that roughly 50 percent of the adults in this country are simply too ignorant and functionally incompetent to be living in a free society.

Tory society is a closed society, in which birth and wealth have priority.

… the term "equality" as applied in Mexico has a very restricted meaning in comparison with the meaning given it in other parts of the world. In Mexico it means that all persons, regardless of learning, preparation or ethics, are equally qualified for governmental positions.

Why turn away from that talent? What is it in today's parties that is virtually saying, 'Well, if you're a George Williams or Garr Barwick, you may not get pre-selection?' I'd like to reverse that.

Hardly anybody realizes that the first couple of chapters of 'Coming Apart' were basically a recapitulation of the argument in 'The Bell Curve.' That's how little people focused on 'The Bell Curve's' real message.

You wouldn't go to a hospital, you wouldn't go to a law firm where the doctors and lawyers were not retained on merit: where they all had tenure regardless of competence. Parents feel the same way about schools that they send their children to.

I could heartily wish that every commission officer was to be previously examined; for, to my certain knowledge, there are persons who have already crept into commission without abilities or fit qualification: I am myself far from desiring to be excused.

I was not broadcasting St. Louis Cardinals baseball because I was accomplished. I was broadcasting baseball at 21 years old because I was Jack Buck's son. I had a billion advantages.

People favouring their relatives more than an outsider is what the biggest fight in democracy is, let it be in film industry or politics.