The oldest problem in ...

The oldest problem in economic education is how to exclude the incompetent. A certain glib mastery of verbiage-the ability to speak portentously and sententiously about the relation of money supply to the price level-is easy for the unlearned and may even be aided by a mildly enfeebled intellect. The requirement that there be ability to master difficult models, including ones for which mathematical competence is required, is a highly useful screening device.
The oldest problem in economic education is how to exclude the incompetent. A certain glib mastery of verbiage-the ability to speak portentously and sententiously about the relation of money supply to the price level-is easy for the unlearned and may even be aided by a mildly enfeebled intellect. The requirement that there be ability to master difficult models, including ones for which mathematical competence is required, is a highly useful screening device.
 John Kenneth Galbraith

Quotes from the same author

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
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 John Kenneth Galbraith
The seminar in economic theory conducted by Hayek at the L.S.E. in the 1930s was attended, it came to seem, by all of the economists of my generation - Nicky Kaldor , Thomas Balogh, L. K. Jah, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, the list could be indefinitely extended. The urge to participate (and correct Hayek) was ruthlessly competitive.
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 John Kenneth Galbraith
The spirit should never grow old.
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 John Kenneth Galbraith
We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.
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 John Kenneth Galbraith
The notion of a formal structure of command must be abandoned. It is more useful to think of the mature corporation as a series of concentric circles.
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 John Kenneth Galbraith