"Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects"
About this Quote
Galbraith skewers the reflex to dignify hardship with economic rationales. The sting lies in the aside "especially by others": people tolerate pain more easily when someone else bears it, then console themselves that such pain must serve a higher purpose. In economic debate, that consolation becomes ideology. Unemployment is praised as discipline for inflation, austerity as a tonic for national character, wage cuts as incentives for efficiency. Suffering becomes a proof of virtue and, conveniently, a policy instrument.
As a mid-century economist and author of The Affluent Society, Galbraith made a career of puncturing what he called the conventional wisdom. He watched how elites and policymakers, faced with inequality or crisis, reframed unpleasant realities as necessary medicine. After crashes, purges of weak firms are lauded as cleansing. During recessions, the hardships of workers are said to restore balance. Cuts to public goods are justified as restoring confidence. Behind these narratives lies not empirical necessity but a moral sensibility with Puritan overtones: no gain without pain, and therefore anything disagreeable must be good for the economy.
The observation also exposes a cognitive comfort. If suffering is purposeful, spectators are absolved from helping; the market or history is already using it for progress. That impulse can slide into fallacy, as when destruction or deprivation is imagined to stimulate growth simply because it is unpleasant. Galbraith urges skepticism toward such rationalizations and asks for evidence rather than pieties.
He is not denying that adjustment can sometimes be costly. He is warning about the ease with which cost becomes the entire argument. When harsh measures are defended primarily because they are harsh, policy drifts from analysis to ritual. Galbraith’s line invites a different test: do the human losses actually purchase a greater economic good, or are they being given a halo to protect entrenched interests and soothe uneasy consciences?
As a mid-century economist and author of The Affluent Society, Galbraith made a career of puncturing what he called the conventional wisdom. He watched how elites and policymakers, faced with inequality or crisis, reframed unpleasant realities as necessary medicine. After crashes, purges of weak firms are lauded as cleansing. During recessions, the hardships of workers are said to restore balance. Cuts to public goods are justified as restoring confidence. Behind these narratives lies not empirical necessity but a moral sensibility with Puritan overtones: no gain without pain, and therefore anything disagreeable must be good for the economy.
The observation also exposes a cognitive comfort. If suffering is purposeful, spectators are absolved from helping; the market or history is already using it for progress. That impulse can slide into fallacy, as when destruction or deprivation is imagined to stimulate growth simply because it is unpleasant. Galbraith urges skepticism toward such rationalizations and asks for evidence rather than pieties.
He is not denying that adjustment can sometimes be costly. He is warning about the ease with which cost becomes the entire argument. When harsh measures are defended primarily because they are harsh, policy drifts from analysis to ritual. Galbraith’s line invites a different test: do the human losses actually purchase a greater economic good, or are they being given a halo to protect entrenched interests and soothe uneasy consciences?
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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