This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ecology teaches us “that the total economy of the planet cannot be guided by an efficient rationale of exploitation alone,” wrote Burke more than 70 years ago, “but that the exploiting part must eventually suffer if it too greatly disturbs the balance of the whole.
Balance |
Kenneth Boulding, fully Kenneth Ewart Boulding
The economy of the future might be called the "spaceman economy," in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything.
No independent African State today by itself has a chance to follow an INDEPENDENT course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. This position will not change unless we have unified POLICY working at the CONTINENTAL LEVEL. The first step towards our cohesive economy would be a unified monetary zone, with, initially, an agreed common parity for our currencies...When we find that the arrangement of a fixed common parity is working successfully, there would seem to be NO reason for not instituting one common currency and a single bank of issue.
Leland Stanford, fully Amasa Leland Stanford
Many writers upon the science of political economy have declared that it is the duty of a nation first to encourage the creation of wealth; and second, to direct and control its distribution. All such theories are delusive.
John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
Political economy cannot be supreme arbiter in politics. Else you might defend slavery where it is economically sound and reject it where the economic argument applies against it.
Lord Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
In nature, all is managed for the best with perfect frugality and just reserve, profuse to none, but bountiful to all; never employing on one thing more than enough, but with exact economy retrenching the superfluous, and adding force to what is principal in everything.
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
The quantity of money available in the whole economy is always sufficient to secure for everybody all that money does and can do.
Money |
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
Wherever we happen to be, we must treasure our manpower and material resources, and must not take a short view and indulge in wastefulness and extravagance. Wherever we are, from the very first year of our work we must bear in mind the many years to come, the protracted war that must be maintained, the counter-offensive, and the work of reconstruction after the enemy's expulsion. On the one hand, never be wasteful or extravagant; on the other, actively expand production. Previously, in some places people suffered a great deal because they did not take the long view and neglected economy in manpower and material resources and the expansion of production. The lesson is there and attention must be called to it.
Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy.
Money |
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does.
Culture |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
The stock market and economy are two different things.
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
The U.S. economy is capable of very good growth provided the government keeps its hands off. Unfortunately, there’s a strong propensity for the government to do things that are harmful rather than helpful. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley [the post-Enron law attempting to curb accounting fraud] is very unfortunate. It tells every entrepreneur in America: Don’t take risks. That’s not what we want. The function of the entrepreneur is to take risks, and if he’s forced not to take risks and to spend on accountants rather than products, the economy is not going to expand or grow.
Good | Government | Growth | Law | Government |
Economy is the basis of society. When the economy is stable, society develops. The ideal economy combines the spiritual and the material, and the best commodities to trade in are sincerity and love.
Finally, “industrial society,” to use a genteel euphemism for capitalism, has also become an easy explanation for the environmental ills that afflict our time. But a blissful ignorance clouds the fact that several centuries ago, much of England’s forest land, including Robin Hood’s legendary haunts, was deforested by the crude axes of rural proletarians to produce charcoal for a technologically simple metallurgical economy and to clear land for profitable sheep runs. This occurred long before the Industrial Revolution.
In this hidden world of cause-and-effect, the environmental movement and the public stand at a crossroads. Is growth a product of “consumerism” — the most socially acceptable and socially neutral explanation that we usually encounter in discussions of environmental deterioration? Or does growth occur because of the nature of production for a market economy? To a certain extent, we can say. both. But the overall reality of a market economy is that consumer demand for a new product rarely occurs spontaneously, nor is its consumption guided purely by personal considerations.
Murray D. Lincoln, fully Murray Danforth Lincoln
People believe that through the American way of life they can work together to encourage wider ownership of economic activities. In this way, they believe they can develop an economy of abundance which will provide a maximum of security and freedom.
To speak of 'limits to growth' under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.
Capitalism | Growth | Nature | System |
General disarmament being for the present entirely out of question, a proportionate reduction might be recommended. The safety of any country and of the world's commerce depending not on the absolute, but relative amount of war material, this would be evidently the first reasonable step to take towards universal economy and peace. But it would be a hopeless task to establish an equitable basis of adjustment. Population, naval strength, force of army, commercial importance, water-power, or any other natural resource, actual or prospective, are equally unsatisfactory standards to consider.
Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith
Avarice is only prudence and economy pushed to excess.
Because the restorative economy inverts ingrained beliefs about how business functions, it may precipitate unusual changes in the economy...the restorative economy will be one in which some businesses get smaller but hire more people, where money can be made by selling the absence of a product or sevice, as is the case where public utilities sell efficiency rather than additional power, and where profits increase when productivity is lowered. Corporations can compete to conserve and increase resources rather than deplete them. Complex and onerous regulations will be replaced by motivating standards." (This is exactly the situation where we are now at with R2000 and masonry heaters. We have the option of adopting an enlightened approach to change, favouring collaborative efforts to redesign codes and standards for everyone's benefit).
Absence | Business | Efficiency | Money | Public | Will | Business |