Joan Robinson quotes

Joan Robinson was a British economist noted for her significant contributions to economic theory, particularly in the areas of imperfect competition and monetary economics. Her work influenced debates on economic policy and the development of post-Keynesian economics. She became one of the most prominent female economists of the 20th century. Here are 51 of her quotes:

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

Joan Robinson

There is no such thing as a normal period of history. Normality is a fiction of economic textbooks.

Joan Robinson

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 Robinson

It is a popular error that bureaucracy is less flexible than private enterprise. It may be so in detail, but when large scale adaptations have to be made, central control is far more flexible. It may take two months to get an answer to a letter from a government department, but it takes twenty years for an industry under private enterprise to readjust itself to a fall in demand.

Joan Robinson

Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.

Joan Robinson

Reality is never a golden age.

Joan Robinson

The nature of technology depends very much upon what the public can be induced to put up with.

Joan Robinson

It seems that neither the Keynesian nor the Marxian prognosis of the future of capitalism is being fulfilled and we are left without any particular theory as to what will happen next.

Joan Robinson

The fundamental differences between Marxian and traditional orthodox economics are, first, that the orthodox economists accept the capitalist system as part of the eternal order of Nature, while Marx regards it as a passing phase in the transition from the feudal economy of the past to the socialist economy of the future.

Joan Robinson

A depression is a situation of self-fulfilling pessimism.

Joan Robinson

The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.

Joan Robinson

But, as soon as speculators become an important influence in the market, their business is to speculate on each others behaviour.

Joan Robinson

It is much easier to organize control over one industry serving many markets than over one market served by the products of several industries.

Joan Robinson

When I came up to Cambridge (in October 1921) to read economics, I did not have much idea of what it was about.

Joan Robinson

It is the rate of investment which governs the rate of saving, and not vice versa.

Joan Robinson

In all the talk in the Principles (as opposed to the formal analysis) it is not the saving of rentiers but the energy of entrepreneurs which governs accumulation.

Joan Robinson

If a rise in wages does not raise prices, a fall will not reduce them.

Joan Robinson

If there is any law governing the distribution of income between classes, it still remains to be discovered.

Joan Robinson

Marx, however imperfectly he worked out the details, set himself the task of discovering the law of motion of capitalism, and if there is any hope of progress in economics at all, it must be in using academic methods to solve the problems posed by Marx.

Joan Robinson

It is impossible to add the stock of money to the flow of saving.

Joan Robinson

The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise.

Joan Robinson

Rosa 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 Robinson