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Economic Quotes

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Economic Quotes

“Emancipation of human labor from economic servitude and exploitation, i.e., from organizations of production in which the conditions of work are determined by a master class who own the means of production, and in which the fruits of work are alienated from workers to the benefit of masters.”

“But if we are to retain freedom, then we can only do so by keeping the determining mass of the citizens the possessors of property with personal control over it, as individuals or as families. For property is the necessary condition of economic freedom in the full sense of that term. He that has not property is under economic servitude to him who has property, whether the possessor of it be another individual or the State.”

“Let us then repeat and firmly fix this main point: the evil, the root evil, of that to which the term Capitalism has come to be applied, is neither its functioning for profit nor its dependence upon legally protected private property; but the presence of a Proletariat, that is of men possessing political freedom, but dispossessed of economic freedom, and existing in such large numbers in any community as to determine the tone of all that community.”

“We know that the only alternative to private competition is government monopoly of enterprise. We know that when government monopolizes production, distribution, and employment, it is no longer the servant of men - it is their master. And, therefore, we know that economic liberty and political liberty are inseparable parts of the same ball of wax - that we must keep them both, or we shall lose them both.”

“Kelso's proposals do promise to free us from our morbid dependency on economic health through armament manufacture; they promise a way out of the welfare mess, out of foodstamps and ship subsidies, out of perpetual inflation, and they suggest a means of doing these things without being too disruptive of the wealth of five percent of the population who own the rest of us.”

“Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit proceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.”

“The party should stand for a constantly wider diffusion of property. That is the greatest social and economic security that can come to free men. It makes free men. We want a nation of proprietors, not a state of collectivists. That is attained by creating a national wealth and income, not by destroying it. The income and estate taxes create an orderly movement to diffuse swollen fortunes more effectively than all the quacks.”

“Capital, and the question of who owns it and therefore reaps the benefit of its productiveness, is an extremely important issue that is complementary to the issue of full employment... I see these as twin pillars of our economy: Full employment of our labor resources and widespread ownership of our capital resources. Such twin pillars would go a long way in providing a firm underlying support for future economic growth that would be equitably shared.”

“One of the proven ways of getting workers more involved with their jobs is by dovetailing employee profit-sharing and stock ownership plans with greater responsibility sharing... Trade unions in this country should... consider these arrangements much more carefully than they have up to now... Expanded employee profit participation and stock ownership would provide workers with a greater measure of economic and social independence, thus stimulating increased productivity.”

“Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services.”

“Rather than providing him with economic opportunity, the Act of that name seems designed to make the poor man do penance all his life for the sin of being born into a non-capital-owning family... One searches it in vain for measure designed to provide economic opportunity to the capital owner. But nobody proposes to educate, train, or rehabilitate either him or his children, even when their "unemployment" is notorious.”

“The political objective of universal capitalism is maximum individual autonomy, the separation of political power wielded by the holders of public office from economic power held by citizens, and the broad diffusion of privately owned economic power.”

“The sooner the world solves its economic problems, the sooner its inhabitants can afford leisure and peace and get on with the non-material things that are inherently important: the work of mind and spirit that is gloriously and uniquely human, the work that no machine can ever do.”

“Thus, the capital owner is not a parasite or a rentier but a worker - a capital worker. A distinction between labor work and capital work suggests the lines along which we could develop economic institutions capable of dealing with increasingly capital-intensive production, as our present institutions cannot.”

“But would the young do any better under the same circumstances? Will they do any better when their turns come? The answer is that youth would not and cannot, given the financial and economic framework within which the elders are operating. While the moral convictions of individuals are important in the long run, it is institutions that determine the immediate course of events - particularly the institutions of finance.”

“A host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts among husbands, wives and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated.”

“It has been the fashion to speak of the conflict between human rights and property rights, and from this it has come to be widely believed that the use of private property is tainted with evil and should not be espoused by rational and civilized men... the only dependable foundation of personal liberty is the personal economic security of private property. The Good Society.”

“Bring on those tired, labor-plagued, competition-weary companies and ESOP will breathe new life into them. They will find ESOP better than Geritol. It will revitalize what is wrong with capitalism. It will increase productivity. It will improve labor relations. It will promote economic justice. It will save the economic system. It will make our form of government and our concept of freedom prevail over those who don't agree with us.”

“Liberalism makes this mistake in regard to private property and Marxism makes it in regard to socialized property... The Marxist illusion is partly derived from a romantic conception of human nature... It assumes that the socialization of property will eliminate human egotism... The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of the Marxist theory.”

“Our economic assistance must be carefully targeted, and must make maximum use of the energy and efforts of the private sector... Economic freedom is the world's mightiest engine for abundance and social justice... Developing countries need to be encouraged to experiment with a growing variety of arrangements for profit sharing and expanded capital ownership.”

“Our Founding Fathers well understood that concentrated power is the enemy of liberty and the rights of man. They knew that the American experiment in individual liberty, free enterprise and republican self-government could succeed only if power were widely distributed. And since in any society social and political power flow from economic power, they saw that wealth and property would have to be widely distributed among the people of the country. The truth of this insight is immediately apparent.”

“Taxation has its limitations as a method of achieving better economic distribution since for this purpose it is essentially remedial. We must also take a positive approach by finding new ways to spread ownership of future capital growth more broadly in our society.”

“Many of the deficiencies of our economic system could be alleviated if ways were found to broaden the ownership of the means of production... This has happened in some companies through ESOPs. Successful approaches of this sort would pay dividends in terms of employee commitment and morale. And they would not deprive anyone of his present holdings since they are based on future growth.”

“We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer. We need the courage of the young. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you. May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in us to that remaking!”

“The Western world generally has lost the concept of man as a creature made to the image and likeness of God, and reduced him either to a component part of the universe, to an economic animal or to a "physiological bag filled with psychological libido." Once man became materialized and atomized in Western thinking, it was only natural for a totalitarianism to arise to gather up the fragments into a new totality and substitute the collective man for the individual man who was isolated from all social responsibilities.”

“The slave states of Western world are an outgrowth of monopolistic capitalism - an economic system which is opposed to the wide distribution of private property in many hands. Instead, monopolistic capitalism concentrates productive wealth among a few men, allowing the rest to become a vast proletariat.”

“It appears it would be quite un-American not to be suspicious of the government or to distrust it. History has taught them a little too much about the tragic frailties of human governments, but it has also driven home to them that they must control firmly political and economic power, which, handed over to any government in their land, could be easily used to oppress them.”

“Coupled with Usury, Unrestricted Competition destroys the small man for the profit of the great and in so doing produces that mass of economically unfree citizens whose very political freedom comes in question because it has no foundation in any economic freedom, that is, any useful proportion of property to support it. Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world.”