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Quotes about economics

133 quotes from 78 people

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Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.
Howard Zinn1922–2010A People’s History of the United States (1980; 2003), Chapter 24. The Coming Revolt of the Guards
What is a debt, anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence.
David Graeber1961–2020Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Twelve, “1971–The Beginning…”, p. 391
- Money
If there were an Economist’s Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations ‘I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage’ and ‘I advocate Free Trade’
PKPaul Krugmanborn 1953“Is Free Trade Passé?”, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Autumn, 1987)
It is doubly chimerical to build peace on economic foundations which, in turn, rest on the systematic cultivation of greed and envy, the very forces which drive men into conflict.
ESE. F. Schumacher1911–1977Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973), p. 36.
- War & Peace
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p. 152.In context
- Business
A free Health Service is a triumphant example of the superiority of collective action and public initiative applied to a segment of society where commercial principles are seen at their worst.
Aneurin Bevan1897–1960In Place of Fear (1952), p. 85
- Health
When the economy is in a depression, scarcity ceases to rule. Productive resources sit idle, so that it is possible to have more of some things without having less of others; free lunches are all around.
PKPaul Krugmanborn 1953“Depressions are Different”, in Robert M. Solow, ed. Economics for the Curious: Inside the Minds of 12 Nobel Laureates. 2014.
“Free competition enforced by law” is a grotesque contradiction in terms.
Ayn Rand1905–1982“Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason,” The Objectivist Newsletter (February 1962) p. 1
- Laws
One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like.
Muhammad Yunusborn 1940“Interview with Prof. Muhammad Yunus” Australian Broadcasting Corporation (25 March 1997)
I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or shapes it into a garment will starve in the process.
Benjamin Harrison1833–1901Speech in Rutland, Vermont (28 August 1891) as reported in The New York Times (29 August 1891), p. 5
- Work
Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
Willa Cather1873–1947“Four Letters: Escapism” first published in Commonweal (17 April 1936)
- Art
- Religion
It is the secret scandal of capitalism that at no point has it been organized primarily around free labor.
David Graeber1961–2020Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Eleven, “Age of the Great Capitalist Empires”, p. 350
- Work
Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn1918–2008Interview with Joseph Pearce (2003)
- God
Stock market bubbles don’t grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality — but reality as distorted by a misconception.
George Sorosborn 1930BuzzFlash interview (2004)
- Money
The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world — all we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them.
Muhammad Yunusborn 1940“Eliminating Poverty Through Market-Based Social Entrepreneurship” in Global Urban Development Magazine (May 2005)
- Freedom