We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
Interpretation
Economic laws are human constructs, not natural phenomena.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's quote emphasizes the idea that economic principles and laws are the result of human decisions and societal structures rather than immutable truths dictated by nature. This perspective highlights the role of human agency and choice in shaping economic systems, encouraging us to reflect on our responsibility in creating and altering these laws.
In practice
During a lecture on economic policy, I used this quote to illustrate the importance of understanding the human element in economics.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.
If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.
It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.
It has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundation, have not been able to destroy capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to create it.
What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.
In reality there is no such thing as an inflation of prices, relatively to gold. There is such a thing as a depreciated paper currency.
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