Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Economics education can be used to obscure how power structures actually govern citizens.
In plain terms
Learning economics can trick you into not seeing who is really in charge.
What can you take from it?
Study economics critically to understand power dynamics.

Where it applies

  • classrooms
  • policy analysis
  • activism

Putting it to work

  • question textbooks
  • analyze ownership structures

Questions to consider

  • What is hidden in your curriculum?
  • Who benefits from this explanation?

Another view

Economics can also empower citizens when taught correctly.

More from John Kenneth Galbraith

  1. Once the visitor was told rather repetitively that this city was the melting pot; never before in history had so many people of such varied languages, customs,…

    Permalink to quote #22
  2. The decisive weakness in neoclassical and neo-Keynesian economics is not the error in the assumptions by which it elides the problem of power. The capacity for…

    Permalink to quote #24
  3. The traveler to the United States will do well, however, to prepare himself for the class-consciousness of the natives. This differs from the already familiar …

    Permalink to quote #21

Related quotes

  1. If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in thei…

    Howard ZinnHoward Zinn quote #1
  2. Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to w…

    Harry BrowneHarry Browne quote #2
  3. But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated.

    John Kenneth GalbraithJohn Kenneth Galbraith quote #2