Quotes by Economists - Page 13

If I were asked to name the deadliest subversive force within capitalism--the single greatest source of its waning morality--I should without hesitation name advertising. How else should one identify a force that debases language, drains thought, and undoes dignity? If the barrage of advertising, unchanged in its tone and texture, were devoted to some other purpose--say the exaltation of the public sector--it would be recognized in a moment for the corrosive element that it is. But as the voice of the private sector it escapes this startled notice. I mention it only to point out that a deep source of moral decay for capitalism arises from its own doings, not from that of its governing institutions.
Robert L. Hellbroner
The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my knowing that the cloud is a vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of suspension; and I am just as likely to allow for, and act on, these physical laws whenever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been incapable of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness.
John Stuart Mill
The power of the intelligentsia is demonstrated not only by their ability to create a general climate of opinion that strikes fear into those who oppose their agenda but also by their ability to create a climate of opinion which richly rewards those political leaders whose decisions are consonant with the vision of the intelligentsia.
Thomas Sowell
Remember, aid cannot achieve the end of poverty. Only homegrown development base on the dynamism of individuals and firms in free markets can do that.
William Easterly
If socialism failed, it was for political, more than economic, reasons; and if capitalism is to succeed it will be because it finds the political will and means to tame its economic forces.
Robert L. Heilbroner
The word 'risk' derives from the early Italian risicare, which means 'to dare'. In this sense, risk is a choice rather than a fate. The actions we dare to take, which depend on how free we are to make choices, are what the story of risk is all about. And that story helps define what it means to be a human being.
Peter L. Bernstein
Laissez faire, laissez passer.
François Quesnay
If a man wishes to ensure the bad opinion of others, his best course probably is to be honest about himself.
William Hurrell Mallock
In the case of patentable ideas such as the wheelbarrow, the idea of unpriced spillovers is more plausible. Yet there is no reason to believe that it is of practical importance. Indeed, there is a modern example of the wheelbarrow – that of Travelpro – the inventor of the modern wheeled roll-on suitcase with a retractable handle. Obviously such an idea can not both be useful and be secret – and once you see a wheeled roll-on suitcase it is not difficult to figure out how to make one of your own. Needless to say, Travelpro was quickly imitated – and so quickly you probably have never even heard of Travelpro. Never-the-less – despite their inability to garner an intellectual monopoly over their invention – they found it worthwhile to innovate – and they still do a lucrative business today, claiming “425,000 Flight Crew Members Worldwide Choose Travelpro Luggage.
Michele Boldrin
Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.
Stephen Leacock
A metallic money, the augmentation or diminution of the quantity of metal available for which is independent of deliberate human intervention, is becoming the modern monetary ideal. The significance of adherence to a metallic-money system lies in the freedom of the value of money from State influence that such a system guarantees.
Ludwig von Mises
Criminal: a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.
Howard Scott
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.
B.R. Ambedkar
Patience is the ability to enjoy the calm of boredom.
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
There is no gainsaying the fact that this suggested program will strike most people as impossibly “radical” and “unrealistic”; any suggestion for changing the status quo, no matter how slight, can always be considered by someone as too radical, so that the only thoroughgoing escape from the charge of impracticality is never to advocate any change whatever in existing conditions. But to take this approach is to abandon human reason, and to drift in animal- or plant-like manner with the tide of events.
Murray N. Rothbard
Men have more to lose than their chains .
Heidi Hartmann
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
Karl Marx
The man who gives me employment which I must have or suffer that man is my master let me call him what I will.
Henry George
Society is a voluntary scheme of mutual benefit. The state is a compulsory scheme of mutual exploitation.
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
Language is the light of the mind.
John Stuart Mill
The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
Ludwig von Mises
A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives.
Charles Wheelan
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
John Maynard Keynes
We still don't have a good word to describe what is missing in Cameroon, indeed in poor countries across the world. But we are starting to understand what it is. Some people call it 'social capital, or maybe 'trust'. Others call it 'the rule of law', or 'institutions'. But these are just labels. The problem is that Cameroon, like other poor countries, is a topsy-turvy world in which it's in most people's interest to take action that directly or indirectly damages everyone else.
Tim Harford
For once the commodities have been sold that were already on the market when their price was authoritatively fixed at a level below that demanded by the situation of the market, then the emptied store-rooms are not filled again. Charging more than a certain price is prohibited, but producing and selling has not been made compulsory. There are no longer any sellers. The market ceases to function. But this means that economic organization based on division of labour becomes impossible. The level of money-prices cannot be fixed without overthrowing the system of social division of labour.
Ludwig von Mises
In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.
Adam Smith
...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.
Muhammad Yunus
Every separate economic agent maintains a stock of money that corresponds to the extent and intensity with which he is able to express his demand for it in the market. If the objective exchange-value of all the stocks of money in the world could be instantaneously and in equal proportion increased or decreased, if all at once the money-prices of all goods and services could rise or fall uniformly, the relative wealth of individual economic agents would not be affected. Subsequent monetary calculation would be in larger or smaller figures; that is all.
Ludwig von Mises
Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those which are seen, and those which are not seen.
Frédéric Bastiat
The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.
Daniel Kahneman
... toxic derivatives were underpinned by toxic economics, which, in turn, were no more than motivated delusions in search of theoretical justification; fundamentalist tracts that acknowledged facts only when they could be accommodated to the demands of the lucrative faith. Despite their highly impressive labels and technical appearance, economic models were merely mathematized versions of the touching superstition that markets know best, both at times of tranquility and in periods of tumult.
Yanis Varoufakis
Competitive forces = the underlying drivers of profitability P.25
Michael E. Porter
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.
Daniel Kahneman
A loser is one who has "given up on his dreams",so long as you are trying, you haven't lost yet!
Manmohan Singh
Moments are the elements of profit
Karl Marx
No one but a fool, and only a fool of a peculiar description, feels offended by the acknowledgment that there are others whose opinion, and even whose wish, is entitled to a greater amount of consideration than his.
John Stuart Mill
That the social life of human beings is subject to definite limitations; that it is governed by a set of laws that are comparable with those of Nature; these are notions that are unknown to the etatist. For the etatist, everything is a question of Macht - power, force, might. And his conception of Macht is crudely materialistic.
Ludwig von Mises
Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people.
B.R. Ambedkar
Our attitude to these criticisms must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World.
John Maynard Keynes
Naive inflationism demands an increase in the quantity of money without suspecting that this will diminish the purchasing power of the money.
Ludwig von Mises
The antagonists of finance’s future, the diaboli ex machina, may have no face at all.
Usman W. Chohan
We should look closely on what is happening at the moment, guys with little moustaches can pop up everywhere now given this instable economic situation. A look into history shows us what that could mean.
Steve Keen
Though, I was born a Hindu, I solemnly assure you that I will not die as a Hindu
B.R. Ambedkar
He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.
William Graham Sumner
If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.
Thomas Sowell
The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society.
Karl Marx
Producing laws is not an easier job than producing cars and food, so if the government is incompetent to produce cars or food, why do you expect it to do a good job producing the legal system within which you are then going to produce the cars and the food?
David D. Friedman
Desperation is the best innovator
Tony Cleaver
To bring our human population in line with the biocapacity of the planet and transform our society from scarcity to sustainable abundance, we will need to address the great disparity in ecological footprint between the rich and poor, while simultaneously lowering the overall human population on Earth.
Jeremy Rifkin
Nothing is easier than to get peaceful people to renounce violence, even when they provide no concrete ways to prevent violence from others.
Thomas Sowell
When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.
Muhammad Yunus
Let us now leave the example of the isolated State and turn our attention to the international movements that arise from a fall in the value of money due to an increase in its amount. Here, again, the process is the same. There is no increase in the available stock of goods; only its distribution is altered. The country in which the new mines are situated and the countries that deal directly with it have their position bettered by the fact that they are still able to buy commodities from other countries at the old lower prices at a time when depreciation at home has already occurred. Those countries that are the last to be reached by the new stream of money are those which must ultimately bear the cost of the increased welfare of the other countries.
Ludwig von Mises
Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly “reforming” their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact they’re always busy “reforming” is an implicit admission that they didn’t get it right the first 50 times.
Lawrence W. Reed
Along with individual responsibility goes some societal responsibility to enable young people and their parents to do what they need to do. Otherwise, what is a society?
Robert B. Reich
This was the argument put forward during the War when the expenditure on the army and navy had to be met; and this was the argument put forward in Germany and Austria after the War when a part of the population had to be provided with cheap food, the losses on the operation of the railways and other public undertakings met, and reparations payments made. The assistance of inflation is invoked whenever a government is unwilling to increase taxation or unable to raise a loan; that is the truth of the matter.
Ludwig von Mises
All Nazi champions insist again and again that Marxism and Bolshevism are the quintessence of the Jewish mind, and that it is the great historic mission of Nazism to root out this pest. It is true that this attitude did not prevent the German nationalists either from coöperating with the German communists in undermining the Weimar Republic, or from training their black guards in Russian artillery and aviation camps in the years 1923–1933, or— in the period from August, 1939, until June, 1941—from entering into a close political and military complicity with Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, public opinion supports the view that Nazism and Bolshevism are philosophies—Weltanschauungen—implacably opposed to each other.
Ludwig von Mises
So much barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their inconvenience and that of their neighbors, a peculiar currency of their own.
John Stuart Mill
It is a choice, and therefore within the province of economics.
Jason Potts
The function of money is to facilitate the business of the market by acting as a common medium of exchange.
Ludwig von Mises
Government as we now know it in the USA and other economically advanced countries is so manifestly horrifying, so corrupt, counterproductive, and outright vicious, that one might well wonder how it continues to enjoy so much popular legitimacy and to be perceived so widely as not only tolerable but indispensable. The answer, in overwhelming part, may be reduced to a two-part formula: bribes and bamboozlement (classically "bread and circuses"). Under the former rubric falls the vast array of government "benefits" and goodies of all sorts, from corporate subsidies and privileges to professional grants and contracts to welfare payments and health care for low-income people and other members of the lumpenproletariat. Under the latter rubric fall such measures as the government schools, the government's lapdog news media, and the government's collaboration with the producers of professional sporting events and Hollywood films. Seen as a semi-integrated whole, these measures give current governments a strong hold on the public's allegiance and instill in the masses and the elites alike a deep fear of anything that seriously threatens the status quo.
Robert Higgs