QUOTES
from
the Bible,
Keynes,
Mandeville,
Meade,
John Stuart Mill,
Adam Smith and
Jelle Zijlstra,
and next, changing the classification principle, from various authors on
Capitalism and Socialism,
Economists and Professors in General,
Free Trade,
Gender,
Government and Politics,
Money and Banking and
Poverty.
BIBLE
Wie koren achterhoudt, hem vloekt het volk;
maar zegening daalt neer op het hoofd van de verkoper.
Spreuken 11:26
He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon
the head of him that selleth it.
Proverbs 11:26, King James version
Him who monopolizes grain, the people curse - but blessings upon the head of him
who distributes it!
New American Bible, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/proverbs/proverb11.htm
Wie hunkert naar onrechtmatige winst,
vernielt zijn eigen huis; maar wie geschenken haat, zal leven.
He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts
shall live.
Proverbs 15:27, King James version
He who is greedy of gain brings ruin on his own house, but he who hates bribes
will live.
Proverbs 15:27,
New American Bible, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
Just as wars have been the only form of large-scale loan expenditure which statesmen have thought justifiable, so gold-mining is the only pretext for digging holes in the ground which has recommended itself to bankers as sound finance.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Ch. 10.
General
Theory,
Ch. 23.
It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens.
General
Theory,
Ch. 24.
The
Collected Writings of J. M. Keynes, VII,
The General Theory, p. 383.
BERNARD MANDEVILLE
All Sea-faring Men, especially the
Dutch, are like the Element they belong to, much given to loudness and
roaring, and the Noise of half a dozen of them, when they call themselves Merry,
is sufficient to drown twice the number of Flutes and Violins.
The Fable of the Bees, edited by Phillip Harth, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1970, p. 129.
How Gay and Merry does every Face appear at a well-ordered Ball, and what a
Solemn Sadness is observ’d at the Masquerade of a Funeral! But the Undertaker is
as much pleas’d with his Gains as the Dancing Master: Both are equally tired in
their Occupations, and the Mirth of the one is as much forc’d as the Gravity of
the other is affected.
A Search into the Nature of Society,
added to The Fable of the Bees in
1723. Harth edn p. 352.
Pride and Vanity have built more Hospitals than all the Virtues together.
An Essay on Charity, and Charity-Schools,
added
to
The Fable of the Bees
in 1723,
Harth edn
JAMES
EDWARD MEADE
The intelligent radical is anything but an optimistic utopian. He
recognizes that the world is a wicked place in which compromise is inevitable.
He freely admits that the price mechanism is the worst possible form of economic
system except the others, and his stirring political rallying cry is: Two Hearty
Cheers for the Price Mechanism.
The Intelligent Radical's
Guide to Economic Policy.
So much of barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of the most
civilised nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their
nationality by having, to their own inconvenience and that of their neighbours,
a peculiar currency of their own.
Principles of Political Economy, book
III chapter XX § 2,
p. 615 Ashley edn.,
Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1917.
First published
1848.
ADAM SMITH
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we
expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Wealth of Nations,
Book I Ch. II.
For in every country of the world, I believe, the avarice and injustice of
princes and sovereign states, abusing the confidence of their subjects, have by
degrees diminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originally
contained in their coins.
Wealth of Nations,
Book I Ch. IV.
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of
the members are poor and miserable.
Wealth of Nations,
Book I Ch. VIII (Everyman’s Library, 1964, p. 70).
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,
but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some
contrivance to raise prices.
Wealth of Nations,
Book I Ch. X (Everyman’s Library, 1964, p. 117).
Apothecaries’ profit is become a bye-word, denoting something uncommonly
extravagant.
Wealth of Nations,
Book I Ch. X.
.. that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician.
Wealth of Nations,
Book IV Ch. III.
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of
the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for
promoting that of the consumer.
Wealth of Nations,
Book IV Ch. VIII.
JELLE ZIJLSTRA
Ook op de kansel tilden de eerwaarde heren soms zwaar aan de problemen van
staat en maatschappij. Mijn wantrouwen met betrekking tot hun deskundigheid ter
zake heeft toen reeds wortel geschoten. (blz. 10)
.., een probleem dat destijds het mensdom nogal beroerde, maar dat intussen
met talloze andere uitermate gewichtige vragen spoorloos is verdwenen. (p. 24)
Alleen in ledigheid worden grote gedachten geboren. (p. 39)
Regeren is bijsturen en niet de hele boel constant op zijn kop willen
zetten. (p. 99)
Het kwaliteitskenmerk van regeringsbeleid hoort te zijn Bestendigheid. (p.
115)
Hij was een zeer bevlogen iemand en ik was voor bevlogen en bewogen mensen
altijd wat schrikachtig. (p. 178)
Het politieke bedrijf, hoe fascinerend ook, is vaak een hogeschool in
taalbederf. (p. 199)
(Over de president van DNB:) Zo'n rustig bestaan; wat doet zo'n president
eigenlijk? (p. 200)
Geldcreatie is voor een regering en parlement met hun ingeschapen drang naar
meer uitgeven een te gevaarlijk speelgoed. (p. 205)
Kijk uit als een politicus het primaat van de politiek bepleit. (p. 218)
Zoals het recht bewaakt moet worden door een onafhankelijke instantie, de
rechterlijke macht, zo moet de waardevastheid van het geld bewaakt worden door
een onafhankelijke instantie, de centrale bank.
(p. 252)
CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM
.. the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.
Joan Robinson,
Economic Philosophy, Penguin,
Harmondsworth 1964, p. 46.
Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn’t work.
Bankruptcies and losses, even the threat of bankruptcy, concentrate the mind on
prudent behavior.
A.H. Meltzer, Asian Problems and the IMF,
Cato Journal 17:3, Winter 1998, p. 269.
Het socialisme probeert de mensen te dwingen beter te zijn dan ze zijn,
terwijl het kapitalisme de mensen de vrijheid geeft zich te gedragen als de
zwijnen die ze altijd al waren.
Peter Sloterdijk, in een vraaggesprek in
Trouw, 14.6.1990.
Ik zie geen hoop voor de wereld en dat heeft mij er gelukkig altijd voor
behoed om in het socialisme of dergelijke onzin te geloven.
Gerrit Komrij in een vraaggesprek in
NRC Handelsblad, 2 november 1990.
Im groszen und ganzen sind die Professoren der politischen
Ökonomie nichts anderes als die gelehrten Kommis der
Kapitalistenklasse.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,
Werke, Band 39, Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1975, S. X.
Un economista es alguien que ve algo en la práctica y quiere saber si es
posible en teoría.
If a professor thinks what matters most
Is to have gained an academic post
Where he can earn a livelihood, and then
Neglect research, let controversy rest,
He’s but a petty tradesman at the best,
Selling retail the work of other men.
Kalidasa (probably 1st century Chr. era), in John Brough (transl. and introd.), Poems from the Sanskrit, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1968.
Zij had de professor wat potsierlijk gevonden – waren
professors dat niet wel meer?
Maria Dermoût, De
tienduizend dingen,
10e dr.,
Querido, Amsterdam 1998 blz. 230.
While the burden remains on our backs
Let the shout for repeal ne’er relax
Till, like Jericho’s wall, Protection shall fall,
And give us our loaf without tax.
Ballad of the National Anti-Corn Law League, 1845
(...), und immer diese Männer mit ihren Wichtigkeiten und
ihren Witzen zwischen den Wichtigkeiten, (...)
Ingeborg Bachmann,
Simultan: Erzählungen, R. Piper & Co. Verlag, München 1991,
S. 18. Erstausgabe 1972.
see also under Adam Smith
The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
Next comes the ruler they love and praise;
Next comes one they fear;
Next comes one with whom they take liberties.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, transl. D.C.Lau, Ch. XVII, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1963.
(When control of the ANC was formally handed to Mr Mbeki in 1997, Mr Mandela gave a prescient warning:)
The leader must keep the forces together, but you can’t do that unless you allow dissent.
The Economist
January 22nd 2005, p. 29.
For centuries now, it has been the fate of the peoples of the East to be ‘discovered’ by the West, with dramatic and usually unpleasant consequences,
Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands,
Granta,
London 1992,
p. 155.
European policymakers only move at gunpoint, and the only gun around is the market.
Willem Buiter, cited in The Economist Jan 19th 2013, p. 62.
MONEY AND BANKING
Money is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce; but only the
instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one
commodity for another. It is none of the wheels of trade: It is the oil which
renders the motion of the wheels of trade more smooth and easy.
David Hume, Writings on Economics
(ed.
by
E. Rotwein), Nelson,
Edinburgh 1955.
First published in
Political Discourses, Edinburgh 1752
Jamais un banquier ne bavarde: il agit, pense, médite, écoute et pèse.
Ainsi, pour avoir bien l’air d’un banquier, ne dis rien, ou dis des choses
insignifiantes.
Honoré de Balzac,
Histoire de la grandeur et de la
décadence de César Birotteau, suivi de La Maison Nucingen, Le Livre de Poche, Éditions Gallimard et Librairie
Générale Française, Paris 1966, p. 167. Paru 1837
..
it is ready lending which cures panics, and non-lending or niggardly lending
which aggravates them.
Walter Bagehot,
Lombard Street, 14th
edition, John Murray, London 1920, p. 298.
Freud sees an intense preoccupation with money as a sublimation of feelings associated with a sexual development arrested in the anal phase.
R.F. Garnett, Jr (ed.),
What do economists know?, Routledge,
London 1999. p. 208.
.. in monetary matters as in diplomacy, a nicely conformist nature, a good
tailor and the ability to articulate the currently fashionable financial cliché
have usually been better for personal success than an excessively inquiring
mind.
J.K. Galbraith, Money, Bantam, New
York 1976,
p.
365.
In finance as in Greek tragedy, one of the commonest pairings is between hubris
and sheer, toe-curling folly.
The Economist
July 25th 2008,
p. 80
Want laten we eerlijk zijn, bankiers zijn nooit de slimsten geweest. Dat
waren grotendeels nette, maar domme jongens met HBS of hooguit een rechtenstudie
in Leiden in hun blauwe blazers en grijze broeken. Die hadden nooit nagedacht
over risico.
POVERTY
see also under Adam Smith
It's the
same the whole world over,
Topman Hans de Gier van de Zwitserse bank Julius Bär in een interview in
NRC Handelsblad van wo. 24 dec. 2008.
It's
the poor wot gets the blame,
It's the rich wot get the pleasure,
Ain't it all a blooming shame.