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About this quote

What does it mean?
Innovative larceny is often just rediscovered fraud; capitalism improves manners but not necessarily morals.
In plain terms
New fraud is just old fraud; capitalism manners improve but not morals.
What can you take from it?
Business practices evolve without moral progress.

Where it applies

  • business ethics
  • financial regulation
  • corporate culture

Putting it to work

  • audit practices
  • review ethics
  • regulate finance

Questions to consider

  • Can business ethics exist without moral progress?
  • Is innovation always ethical?

Another view

It presents a cynical view of capitalism without nuance.

More from John Kenneth Galbraith

  1. Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.

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  2. All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.

    Permalink to quote #30
  3. The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.

    Permalink to quote #27

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