There is no use in deceiving ourselves. American public opinion rejects the market economy, the capitalistic free enterprise system that provided the nation with the highest standard of living ever attained. Full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties.
The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.
The recurrence of periods of depression and mass unemployment has discredited capitalism in the opinion of injudicious people. Yet these events are not the outcome of the operation of the free market. They are on the contrary the result of well-intentioned but ill-advised government interference with the market.
In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.
The supremacy of public opinion determines not only the singular role that economics occupies in the complex of thought and knowledge. It determines the whole process of human history.
Once public opinion is convinced that the increase in the quantity of money will continue and never come to an end, and that consequently the prices of all commodities will not cease to rise, everybody becomes eager to buy as much as possible and restrict his cash holdings to minimum size... If the credit expansion is not stopped in time, the boom turns to crack-up boom: the flight into real values begins, and the whole monetary system founders.
Public opinion takes no offense at the endeavors of farmers, workers, clerks, teachers, doctors, ministers, and people from many other callings to earn as much as they can. But it censures the capitalists and entrepreneurs for their greed.
The masses favor socialism because they trust the socialist propaganda of the intellectuals. The intellectuals, not the populace, are molding public opinion.
Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: