Economy Quotes - Page 32

• Adam Smith's was a real universalism in intent. Laissez Faire was intended to establish a world community as well as a natural harmony of interests within each nation... But the "children of darkness" were able to make good use of his creed. A dogma which was intended to guarantee the economic freedom of the individual became the "ideology" of vast corporate structures of a later period of capitalism, used by them, and still used, to prevent a proper political control of their power.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Children, Real, Community

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• Marxism was the social creed and the social cry of those classes who knew by their miseries that the creed of the liberal optimists was s snare and a delusion... Liberalism and Marxism share a common illusion of the "children of light." Neither understands property as a form of power which can be used in either its individual or its social form as an instrument of particular interest against the general interest.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Wisdom, Children, Light

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• 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.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Wisdom, Mistake, Russia

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• Government has the responsibility to provide the climate in which Americans, all Americans, have an opportunity for good jobs; and not only for good jobs, but an opportunity if they have the ability and the desire, to be owners and managers, to have a piece of the action, because if they have a piece of the action, then they believe in the system rather than fighting against it.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Wisdom, Jobs, Believe

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• It's long been common practice among many to draw a distinction between "human rights" and "property rights," suggesting that the two are separate and unequal - with "property rights" second to "human rights."

  Richard M. Nixon

  Wisdom, Rights, Practice

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• We must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams. This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity and new opportunities for expanded ownership, because in order to be secure in their human rights, people need access to property rights.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Wisdom, Dream, Mean

  Nixon, Richard M. (1971). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1970”, p.11, Best Books on

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• The market, if it can be kept honest and competitive, does provide very strong incentives for work effort and productive contributions. In their absence, society would thrash about for alternative incentives-some unreliable, like altruism; some perilous like collective loyalty; some intolerable, like coercion or oppression.

  Arthur Melvin Okun

  Loyalty, Wisdom, Strong

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• How right the working classes are in their "materialism." How right they are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time!

  George Orwell

  Wisdom, Class, Soul

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.164, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The people of America are a people of property; almost every man is a freeholder.

  Thomas Paine

  Wisdom, Men, America

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• Bad as "independence" is, the main fault of the Federal Reserve System - an admirable system if conducted in the public interest - is that too much power and control rests in the hands of people whose private interests are directly affected by the Federal Reserves' actions.

  Wright Patman

  Wisdom, Hands, People

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• The Open Market Committee, as presently established, is plainly not in the public interest. This committee must be operated by purely public servants, representatives of the people as a whole and not any single interest group. The Open Market Committee should be abolished, and its powers transferred to the Federal Reserve Board - the present public members of the committee, with reasonably short terms of office.

  Wright Patman

  Wisdom, Office, People

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• Also, the Federal Advisory Committee should be enlarged and reorganized. Members should be chosen for the broadest possible representation of the public interest, their main qualification: ability.

  Wright Patman

  Politics, Members, Advisory

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• It may seem strange, but Congress has never developed a set of goals for guiding Federal Reserve policy. In founding the System, Congress spoke about the country's need for "an elastic currency." Since then, Congress has passed the Full Employment Act, declaring its general intention to promote "maximum employment, production, and purchasing power." But it has never directly counseled the Federal Reserve.

  Wright Patman

  Wisdom, Country, Goal

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• There have been times when the Federal Reserve has restricted the money supply and raised interest rates to gain an end, which had much better been left to another Government agency or the Congress to attain. The country could have had lower interest rates without sacrificing anything else.

  Wright Patman

  Country, Sacrifice, Agency

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• There are many reasons why the general public doesn't really understand our monetary system. In the first place, money is something that people tend to get emotional about. After all, money involves, and always has involved, something closely akin to faith-which probably explains why in many past societies the money system has been in the hands of a priesthood, the subject of magical rites, and the ceremonial services of the tribe's medicine man.

  Wright Patman

  Wisdom, Men, Emotional

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• In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one.

  Wright Patman

  Powerful, Moving, Responsibility

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• If the Federal Reserve pursues a policy which Congress or the President believes not to be in the public interest, there is nothing Congress can do to reverse the policy. Nor is there anything the people can do. Such bastions of unaccountable power are undemocratic. The Federal Reserve System must be reformed, so that it is answerable to the elected representatives of the people.

  Wright Patman

  Believe, People, President

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• The Federal Reserve is the overlord of the money supply. If these two are not steering in the same direction, they can either neutralize each other or have the economy lurching in all directions. This is not a rational system for setting economic policy. It has given us trouble in the past, as the text will establish, and will inevitably in the future.

  Wright Patman

  Past, Two, Politics

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• If the world is made to furnish each individual with the means of livelihood and the instruments for his growth and progress, each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent Council reminded us of this: "God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite in charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis."

  Pope Paul VI

  Mean, Men, Justice

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• Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development. One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed.

  Pope Paul VI

  Wisdom, Strong, Successful

  Catholic Church. Pope (1963-1978 : Paul VI), Pope Paul VI (1980*). “On the development of peoples”

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• Unless we increase our economy's productivity-its vitality and competitiveness-we will face pressure for increasing controls.

  Charles H. Percy

  Wisdom, Pressure, Faces

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• Just as important, we need a new dedication to opening avenues for employee participation and motivation through profit-sharing and innovative programs of job enrichment.

  Charles H. Percy

  Jobs, Motivation, Dedication

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• No vicarious charity can substitute for justice which is due as an obligation and is wrongfully denied.

  Pope Pius XI

  Wisdom, Justice, Politics

  Catholic Church. Pope (1922-1939 : Pius XI), Pope Pius XI (1947). “On reconstructing the social order: (Quadragesimo anno)”

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• In the present state of human society, however, We deem it advisable that the wage-contract should, when possible, be modified somewhat by a contract of partnership, as is already being tried in various ways to the no small gain both of the wage-earners and of the employers. In this way wage-earners are made sharers in some sort in the ownership, or the management, or the profits.

  Pope Pius XI

  Wisdom, Politics, Way

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• For they have always unanimously maintained that nature, rather the Creator Himself, has given man the right of private ownership not only that individuals may be able to provide for themselves and their families but also that the goods which the Creator destined for the entire family of mankind may through this institution truly serve this purpose.

  Pope Pius XI

  Men, Politics, Able

  Catholic Church. Pope (1922-1939 : Pius XI), Pope Pius XI (1947). “On reconstructing the social order: (Quadragesimo anno)”

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