Quotes About Economics

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people.

Not for nothing was Smith's first book about moral philosophy. His concern, as Foley says, was the one that has haunted economic thinking ever since: "how to be a good person and live a good and moral life within the antagonistic, impersonal, and self-regarding social relations that capitalism imposes.

Unfortunately, Doug, we have lost the long-term perspective, and we are suffering from an absurd and very unwise belief that there can be unlimited economic development on a planet of finite natural resources, focusing on short-term results or profits at the expense of long-term interests.

However, in order to be economically successful, the colonial invaders needed plentiful supplies of cheap labor—and it was this that led to the transatlantic slave trade.

There are only two ultimate public powers in shaping and running American cities: votes and control of the money. To sound nicer, we may call these "public opinion" and "disbursement of funds," but they are still votes and money.

There are only two ultimate public powers in shaping and running American cities: votes and control of the money.

The primary economic conflict, I think, is between people whose interests are with already well-established economic activities, and those whose interests are with the emergence of new economic activities.

The way to raise the tax base of a city is not at all to exploit to the limit the short-term tax potential of every site. This undermines the long-term tax potential of whole neighborhoods.

No good for cities or for their design, planning, economics or people, can come of the emotional assumption that dense city populations are, per se, undesirable.

a check from the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

Unlike China's growth story, which has been built on the strategy of creating excess supply, the Indian growth story has been built on the strategy of responding to incentives generated by excess demand. Which is why a certain degree of inflation is built into the Indian growth process.

Unlike physics, economists don't settle things. There seems to be plenty of room for different conclusions that are still accepted in the academy.

This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.

Unlike the Soviet Communist party, the Chinese Communist party chose to introduce capitalism.

Unlike President Obama, President Nixon was a capitalist who did not believe in 'remaking' the very character of America.

My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown.

Putting, say, an 85 per cent income tax rate is unlikely to bring in much revenue.

In order to secure our unlimited future, we need a leader who understands the moral case for free enterprise.

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, the power to destroy.

Poverty is unnecessary.

Arthur Laffer has taught us, 'If you tax something, you get less of it.' That's why firms are moving offshore in droves. It's not about being unpatriotic. It's that it doesn't pay, after-tax, to invest in the United States.

Economists specialize in pointing out unpleasant trade-offs - a skill that is on full display in the health care debate. We want patients to receive the best care available. We also want consumers to pay less. And we don't want to bankrupt the government or private insurers. Something must give.

It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.