418 quotes found
“It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced....Public criticism or even expressions ...”
“Even if we could grow our way out of the crisis and delay the inevitable and painful reconciliation of virtual and real wealth, there is the question of whether this would be a wise thing to do. Ma...”
“The theories of the social sciences do not consist of laws in the sense of empirical rules about the behavior of objects definable in physical terms. All that the theory of the social sciences atte...”
“The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a spec...”
“As with our earlier worship of saints and facts, there is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting. The message o...”
“The global economy is a doomsday machine that must be stopped and reprogrammed.”
“Economists are generally negligent of their heroes.”
“Whether you agree with its policy or not, your dealing with government is not voluntary, but coercive. Government is the very antithesis of free market.”
“It is not the fault of the entrepreneurs that the consumers,the people, the common man,prefer liquor to Bibles and detective stories to serious books, and that governments prefer guns to butter. Th...”
“Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.”
“Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a ...”
“We economists don't know much, but we do know how to create a shortage. If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers can't sell tomatoes for more than t...”
“The elimination of profit, whatever methods may be resorted to for its execution, must transform society into a senseless jumble.”
“By the fall of 1918, it was clear that a nation's prosperity, even its very survival, depended on securing a safe, abundant supply of cheap oil.”
“When the solution to a given problem doesnt lay right before our eyes, it is easy to assume that no solution exists. But history has shown again and again that such assumptions are wrong. This is n...”
“Money is a public good; as such, it lends itself to private exploitation.”
“Neoclassical economics is precisely the theory one would expect a vastly complex system of international corporations, world markets, and interconnected currencies to create to sustain, justify, ex...”
“In Chapter 5 we consider swindles and defalcations. It happens that crashes and panics often are precipitated by the revelation of some misfeasance, malfeasance, or malversation (the corruption of ...”
“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 ...”
“It is certainly true that imitation is everywhere, from sport to business, from dancing to dressing, from driving to singing. In fact, imitation is at the heart of competitive behavior and of almos...”
