Quotes on Economics

He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.

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

It is here we come to the heart of the matter. The economic principle of comparative advantage', 'a country may, in return for manufactured commodities, import corn even if it can be grown with less labour than in the country from which it is imported

A country which does not respect the rights of its own citizens will not respect the rights of its neighbours

Here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it

It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe

It is the habit of the unthinking to turn to the illusions of economic magic. These unhappy times call for the building of plans that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid

Evolution works by selection, not by instruction. There is no final cause, no teleology, no purpose guiding the overall process

Darwin's greatest achievement was to show that the appearance of purpose, planning, teleology (design), and intentionality in the origin and development of human and animal species was entirely an illusion. The illusion could be explained by evolutionary processes that contained no such purpose at all. But the spread of ideas through imitation required the whole apparatus of human consciousness and intentionality

There was never anything so well devised by men which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted

What really happens is that the gene pool becomes filled with genes that influence bodies in such a way that they behave 'as if' they made complex, if unconscious, cost/benefit calculations

Conformity can be costly in a world of uncertainty which requires innovative institutional creation because no one can know the right path to survival. Over time, the richer the cultural context in terms of providing multiple experimentation and creative competition, the more likely the successful survival of the society

Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. The watchmaker is blind

The essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process

Any man who is only an economist is unlikely to be a good one.

You cannot go to sleep with one form of economic system and wake up the next morning with another.

Studying economics is not a good preparation for dealing with it.

In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.

When men are employed they are best contented.

But part of the job of economics is weeding out errors. That is much harder than making them, but also more fun.

Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?