Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
Adam SmithRead
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the idea of landlords profiting from property they did not cultivate or develop.
Adam Smith's quote highlights the issue of land ownership and the ensuing economic implications. It suggests that when land becomes privatized, those who own it can exploit it for profit without contributing to its cultivation or improvement, which raises questions about fairness in economic systems and the ethics of wealth generation in relation to labor and natural resources.
Themes
LandownershipPropertyEconomicjusticeRentExploitation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about economic inequalities, one might reference this quote to illustrate the exploitative nature of land rent.
More from Adam Smith
All quotes →It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Adam SmithRead
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
Adam SmithRead
This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
Adam SmithRead
The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
Adam SmithRead
Defense is superior to opulence.
Adam SmithRead
Similar quotes
In Europe and the United States the two decades following the Second World War will for long be remembered as a very good time, the time when capitalism really worked. Everywhere in the industrialized countries production increased. Unemployment was everywhere low. Prices were nearly stable. When production lagged and unemployment rose, governments intervened to take up the slack, as Keynes had urged.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
What I did not know yet about hunger, but would find out over the next twenty-one years, was that brilliant theorists of economics do not find it worthwhile to spend time discussing issues of poverty and hunger. They believe that these will be resolved when general economic prosperity increases. These economists spend all their talents detailing the process of development and prosperity, but rarely reflect on the origin and development of poverty and hunger. A a result, poverty continues.
Muhammad YunusRead
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
Friedrich August Von HayekRead
I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize - not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years - the way the world thinks about economic problems.
John Maynard KeynesRead
I'm just saying that if you understand how the economic machine works, it just works like a machine. There are cause-effect relationships.
Ray DalioRead
An economy can survive with 10% of the population insolation. It can't survive when 50% of the population is in isolation.
Paul RomerRead