Below are some quotations I selected for Joan Robinson to go on an
economist's calendar.  If any of you have any "better" selections
please let me know.


A few ground rules for the discussion:

	1. Space is limited, so please accompany any suggested quotation
with a suggestion of which quotation to cut.

	2. The new quotation can be no longer than the cut quotation.
	
	3. Please give the source for any quotation you give--I will have to
get permissions for each.

David Colander



  Joan Robinson

"Wealth, as the copy-book maxims tell us, is not necessarily a source 
of satisfaction. There are two ways of satisfying desires: one is to 
get more and the other to want less. Moreover human beings do not 
pursue satisfaction in a direct and consistent manner; they are 
constantly going a long way out of the way to torment themselves. 
But, taken by and large, as individuals, groups and nations, they do 
pursue wealth, and the very fact that human beings are interested in 
wealth justifies some of them (called economists) in talking about 
it, without being obliged to take a view on the wisdom or folly of 
the race." (15, The Accumulation of Capital).

"Though Marx is more sympathetic, in many ways, to a modern mind, 
than the orthodox economists, there is no need to turn him, as many 
seek to do, into an inspired prophet." (5, An Essay on Marxian Economics).


"Economics is "some" use, but it would have been a great deal more if 
the Keynesian revolution had really succeeded." (X, Forward, "After 
Keynes", 1973).

  "One reason why modern life is so uncomfortable is that we have 
grown self-conscious about things that used to be taken for granted. 
Formerly people believed what they believed because they thought it 
was true, or because it was what all right-thinking people thought. 
But since Freud exposed to us our propensity to rationalization and 
Marx showed how our ideas spring from ideologies we have begun to 
ask: Why do I believe what I believe? The fact that we ask such 
questions implies that we think that there is an answer to be found 
but, even if we could answer them at one layer, another remains 
behind: Why do I believe what I believe about what it is that makes 
me believe it? So we remain in an impenetrable fog. Truth is no 
longer true. Evil is no longer wicked. 'It all depends on what you 
mean.' But this makes life impossible - we must find a way through." 
(7, Economic Philosophy, 1962).