Economists & Political Thinkers

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”

“The Hiding Hand principle suggests that ignorance of the difficulties ahead can be a blessing in disguise — people start projects they would never have begun had they known the full cost, and then find creative ways to overcome the unexpected obstacles.”

“Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticism from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.”

“Nations fail because their extractive economic institutions do not create the incentives needed for people to save, invest, and innovate. Extractive political institutions support these economic institutions by cementing the power of those who benefit from the extraction.”

“The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”

“Virtually all of today's rich countries used protectionist policies and other forms of government intervention to develop their economies. Having climbed to the top, they then kicked away the ladder by which they had risen, preaching free trade and free markets to developing nations.”

“A fundamental characteristic of our economy is that the financial system swings between robustness and fragility and these swings are an integral part of the process that generates business cycles.”

“Marx, however much he may have been wrong in detail, understood the nature of capitalism better than anyone else. His central theme — that private property in the means of production is a social relation, not a natural fact — remains as valid as ever.”

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”

“The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”

“The entrepreneur is essentially a man of action, driven not by hedonistic motives but by the dream and the will to found a private kingdom, the will to conquer, and the joy of creating.”

“To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment would result in the demolition of society.”

“Quand le taux de rendement du capital dépasse durablement le taux de croissance de la production et du revenu — ce qui était le cas jusqu'au XIXe siècle, et risque fort de redevenir la norme au XXIe siècle —, le capitalisme produit mécaniquement des inégalités insoutenables, arbitraires, remettant radicalement en cause les valeurs méritocratiques sur lesquelles se fondent nos sociétés démocratiques.”

“When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.”

“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.”