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Economics Quotes

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Economics Quotes

“Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.”

Masters Economics Labor Raises Constant Combination Uniforms Wages Tacit Wealth Of Nations

Book:An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner

Source: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner

“We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations [that is, unions or colluding organizations] of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual price.”

World Has Beens Said Imagine Subjects Masters Economics Labor Organization Accounts Raises Constant Unions Ignorant Combination Uniforms Wages Workmen Tacit Wealth Of Nations

Author:Adam Smith

“What we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages or working conditions... These so-called "right to work" laws, they don't have to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics. What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”

Giving Trying Law Talking Rights Conditions Economics Wages Bargains Working Conditions

Author:Barack Obama

“At the peak of the so-called great success of neoliberal economics, in 2007, right before the crash, non-supervisory workers were at wages considerably lower than in 1979, when the neoliberal assault was taking off. That perfectly naturally causes resentment and fear, and combines with a tendency to blame the most vulnerable.”

Causes Economics Blame Workers Tendencies Vulnerable Resentment Crash Wages Assault Great Success

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Many of my students assume that government protection is the only thing ensuring decent wages for most American workers. But basic economics shows that competition between employers for workers can be very effective at preventing businesses from misbehaving.”

Shows Government Students Economics Competition Assuming Workers Protection Decent Wages Employers Preventing American Workers Misbehaving

Author:Christina Romer

“America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

“In raising the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt. Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods, both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits; they are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

People Doe Philosophy Political Interest Simple Effects Masters Gains Economics Regard Silent Profit Complaining Goods Commodity Wages Compounds Merchants Pernicious Compound Interest

Author:Adam Smith

“Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from.”

Years Politics Liberty Baby Six Economics Asking Libertarian Libertarianism Wages Six Year Olds

Author:Thomas Sowell

“You can have a wages policy imposed by mass unemployment.”

Policy Mass Economics Unemployment Wages

Author:Michael Foot

“The growth of a nation's productive potential is the central factor in determining its growth in real wages and living standards.... high rates of investment and saving usually have a big payoff in promoting economic growth.”

Real Philosophy Bigs Political Nations Growth Economic Standards Economics Investment Rate Factors Saving Productive Wages Promoting Economic Growth Payoff

Author:Paul Samuelson

“The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.”

Business Company Economics Workers Profit Makers Farmers Wages Farming Labourers

Book:The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch

Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch

“In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price-determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away.”