Thousands of important and intelligent men have never been able to grasp the principle of comparative advantage or believe it even after it was explained to them
Interpretation
The quote highlights how many intelligent individuals fail to understand a fundamental economic principle.
Paul Samuelson's quote emphasizes the challenge of comprehending the principle of comparative advantage, which states that individuals or nations can benefit from trade by specializing in the production of goods in which they have a lower opportunity cost. Despite its importance and utility in economics, even highly intelligent people struggle to grasp this concept fully, indicating that understanding economic theories often requires more than just intelligence; it requires a particular mindset and willingness to analyze and accept complex ideas.
In practice
In an economic lecture about trade theory.
To a person of analytical ability, perceptive enough to realise that mathematical equipment was a powerful sword in economics, the world of economics was his or her oyster in 1935. The terrain was strewn with beautiful theorems begging to be picked up and arranged in unified order.
I can't think of a president who has been overburdened by a knowledge of economics.
My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
My family was well off but not rich. I spent the four years I was an undergraduate working on the beach. And it wasn't because I was lazy; it was because my freshman class would go to a hundred different employers and wouldn't get a nibble. That was a disequilibrium system. I realized that the ordinary old-fashioned Euclidean geometry didn't apply.
Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.
If you increase the quantity of money, you bring about the lowering of the purchasing power of the monetary unit.
The great merit of gold is precisely that it is scarce; that its quantity is limited by nature; that it is costly to discover, to mine, and to process; and that it cannot be created by political fiat or caprice.
The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them ... It is not so with the Distribution of Wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like.
The market economy-capitalism-is a social system of consumers' supremacy.
I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives, but sadly over the years it has lost its way a bit. The short-term focus on profit has driven most businesses to forget about the important long-term role they have in taking care of people and the planet.
protected businesses never, never become competitive ... Halliburton, Bechtel, Parsons, KPMG, RTI, Blackwater and all other U.S. corporations that were in Iraq to take advantage of the reconstruction were part of a vast protectionist racket whereby the U.S. government had created their markets with war, barred their competitors from even entering the race, then paid them to do the work, while guaranteeing them a profit to boot - all at taxpayer expense.
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