Quotes About Economy

There is a story about Henry Ford that dramatizes the "just enough" philosophy nicely: Ford used to send his people out to scour the scrap heaps of America looking for old Ford engines. Dragging them back to Detroit, they would look for the parts that hadn't worn out and then downgrade the specifications to save money.

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.

The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives.

In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.

The extent of the market, therefore, must for a long time be in proportion to the riches and populousness of that country, and consequently their improvement must always be posterior to the improvement of that country.

Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the produce

En toda sociedad avanzada el agricultor es sólo agricultor y el industrial sólo industrial.

Pero aunque el país más pobre, a pesar de la inferioridad de sus cultivos, puede en alguna medida rivalizar con el rico en la baratura y calidad de sus granos, no podrá competir con sus industrias, al menos en las manufacturas que se ajustan bien al suelo, clima y situación del país rico.

Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the proportion between the number of those who are annually employed

gran multiplicación de la producción de todos los diversos oficios, derivada de la división del trabajo, da lugar, en una sociedad bien gobernada, a esa riqueza universal que se extiende hasta las clases más bajas del pueblo.

Troisième maxime. - Tout impôt doit être perçu à l'époque et selon le mode que l'on peut présumer les moins gênants pour le contribuable.

must necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great a number of workmen that it is impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse

La libra de moneda escocesa contenía, desde los tiempos de Alejandro I hasta los de Robert Bruce, una libra de plata del mismo peso y ley que la libra esterlina inglesa.

The common complaint, that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and that the labouring poor will not now be contented with the same food, clothing, and lodging, which satisfied them in former times, may convince us that it is not the money price of labour only, but its real recompense, which has augmented. Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency, to the society?

The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth. The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, naturally increases with the increase of national wealth, and cannot possibly increase without it.

Quatrième maxime. - Tout impôt doit être conçu de manière à ce qu'il fasse sortir des mains du peuple le moins d'argent possible au-delà de ce qui entre dans le Trésor de l'Etat, et en même temps à ce qu'il tienne le moins longtemps possible cet argent hors des mains du peuple avant d'entrer dans ce Trésor.

Cheap years tend to increase the proportion of independent workmen to journeymen and servants of all kinds, and dear years to diminish it.

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition, that they are going fast backwards.

The want of parsimony, in time of peace, imposes the necessity of contracting debt in time of war. When

It is in this manner that money has become in all civilised nations the universal instrument of commerce, by the intervention of which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for one another.

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in his view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.

and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniences of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.

necessarily