Political Economy quotes

It does not occur to such people that these matters are really more difficult to understand than chemistry, or astronomy, or geology, and that a lifetime of study is not sufficient to enable us to speak confidently about them.

Yet, they who have never studied political economy at all, are usually the most confident.

The fact is that, just as physical science was formerly hated, so now there is a kind of ignorant dislike and impatience of political economy.

cripples, blind people, and all who are absolutely disabled from helping themselves, are proper objects of the rich man's charity. All that the political economist insists upon is that charity shall be really charity, and shall not injure those whom it is intended to aid.

It is sad to think that hitherto much harm has been done by those who wished only to do good.

It is sad, again, to see thousands of persons trying to improve their positions by means which have just the opposite effect, I mean by strikes, by refusing to use machinery, and by trying, in various ways, to resist the production of wealth.

He taught us the value of Free Labour and Free Trade, and now, a hundred years after the publication of his great book, there ought not to be so many mistaken people vainly acting in opposition to his lessons.

It is certain that if people do not understand a true political economy, they will make a false one of their own.

Hence the imperative need that no one, neither man nor woman, should grow up without acquiring some comprehension of the science which we are going to study.

but, on the other hand, a man need not lose his good conscience, and his other sources of happiness when he becomes rich and enjoys all the interesting occupations and amusements which wealth can give.

Wealth, then, is far from being the only good thing: nevertheless it is good, because it saves us from too severe labour, from the fear of actual want, and enables us to buy such pleasant things and services as are transferable.

7. Wealth is limited in Supply. In the second place, things cannot be called wealth unless they be limited in supply; if we have just as much of any substance as we want, then we shall not esteem a new supply of it.

From these observations we learn that there can never be, among civilised nations, so much wealth, that people would cease to wish for any more. However much we manage to produce, there are still many other things which we want to acquire.

When people are well fed, they begin to want good clothing; when they are well clothed, they want good houses, and furniture, and objects of art.

If, then, too much wealth were ever produced, it would be too much of one sort, not too much of all sorts. Farmers might be ruined if they grew so much corn that nobody could eat it all;

Certainly, the amount of food thus obtained is large compared with the labour: but wild Indians and other ignorant tribes of men cannot wait while the corn is growing; the poor Australian natives have to gather grass seeds or find worms and opossums every day.

There is a good Japanese maxim which says, "Dig a well before you are thirsty," and it is evidently very desirable to do so.

But you must have capital to live upon while you are digging the well.

… the snow fills up all the hollows in the mountain side, they can easily drag the trees down to the rivers, which rise high with floods after the melting of the snow, and carry the logs away, without further labour, to the towns and ports.

It is a good rule not to do to-day what we can probably do more easily to-morrow: but it is a still better rule not to put off till to-morrow what we can do more easily to-day.

In order, however, that we may be able to wait and to do each kind of work at the best time, we must have enough capital to live upon in the meantime.

No doubt it may be said that all the greatest improvements in industry—most of what tends to raise man above the condition of the brute animals—proceed from science. The poet Virgil was right when he said, "

Happy is he who knows the causes of things.

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the compositors set up the type; the reader corrects the proofs; the pressmen work off the printed sheets; then there are still the bookbinders, and the booksellers, besides a great many other small trades which supply the tools wanted by the principal trades.

Thus, society is like a very complicated machine, in which there is a great number of wheels, and wheels within wheels; each part goes on attending to its own business, and doing the same work over and over again.

There is what we should call a complex organization (Greek,ὁργανον, instrument), that is to say, different people and different trades work as instruments of each other, all assisting in the ultimate result.

but this is a fallacious saying. Nothing, at first sight, can seem more reasonable and just; but when you examine its meaning, you soon find that there is no real meaning at all.

It amounts merely to saying, that a man ought to have what he ought to have.

There is no way of deciding what is a fair day's wages. Some workmen receive only a shilling a day; others two, three, four, or five shillings; a few receive as much as ten, or even twenty shillings a day;

46. What is a Fair Day's Wages?

It is a favourite saying that a man should have a fair day's wages for a fair day's work; but this is a fallacious saying.

Nothing, at first sight, can seem more reasonable and just; but when you examine its meaning, you soon find that there is no real meaning at all. It amounts merely to saying, that a man ought to have what he ought to have.

The work itself is the disagreeable price paid for the wages earned, and these wages consist of the greater part of the value of the goods produced.

It is absurd to suppose that people can become richer by having less riches.

To become richer we must make more riches, and the object of every workman should be not to make work, but to make goods as rapidly and abundantly as possible.

These prices depend entirely upon supply and demand, and no one is really able to decide with certainty what will be the conditions of supply and demand a month or two hence.

Government might almost as wisely legislate about the weather we are to have next summer as about the state of trade, which much depends upon the weather, or upon wars and accidents of various kinds, which no one can foresee.

It is impossible, then, to fix prices and wages beforehand by any kind of law or compulsory decision.

The workmen, feeling that their Christmas bonuses depended upon the success of the works, would not favour idleness, and would have some inducement for preventing needless waste whether of time or materials.

By degrees they would learn that the best trades-union is a union with their employers.

Strikes and lockouts would be for the most part a thing of the past, because, if wages were too low, the balance-sheet would prove the fact at the end of the year, and half the surplus would go to the workmen.

The workmen also do not like the arrangement, because the trades-unions oppose co-operation, fearing that it will overthrow their own power. Where the scheme has been tried, it has usually succeeded well, until the men, urged by their trades-unions, refused to go on with it.

Thus are people, through prejudice and want of knowledge, made blind to the best interests of themselves and the country.

It is to be feared, then, that industrial partnerships will not make much progress just at present, so great is the dislike to them felt both by trades-unions and by prejudiced employers.

He who has more than enough of one article has already enjoyed all the good which that article can do to him, but he probably needs supplies of other articles.

The exchange, like an act of mercy, blesses both him who gives and him who receives, because what each receives in exchange is much wanted and has high utility.

In England, for instance, we possess a great deal of coal, and France produces plenty of good wine.

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There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

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But as these schemes are completed by degrees, no one ventures to propose new ones; people have been frightened by the losses and bankruptcies and frauds brought to light in the collapse, and when some people are afraid, others readily become frightened likewise by sympathy.

In matters of this kind men of business are much like a flock of sheep which follow each other without any clear idea why they do so.

In a year or two the prices of iron, coal, timber, &c., are reduced to the lowest point; great losses are suffered by those who make or deal in such materials, and many workmen are out of employment.

then these bubbles and collapses will be prevented, or will become much less disastrous. Credit cycles will go on until the public learn to look out for them, and act accordingly.

Business men must become bold during depressed trade, careful during excited trade, instead of acting exactly in the opposite way.

It is only a knowledge of these credit cycles which can prevent them, and this is the reason why I have said so much about them in this Primer.

and in the Library of the Royal Society is shown a letter from Sir Isaac Newton requesting a friend to buy shares for him in the South Sea Company, just at the moment when the South Sea Bubble was at its worst.

Let people take warning by Sir Isaac Newton, and never speculate in a thing because other people are doing the same; then these bubbles and collapses will be prevented, or will become much less disastrous.

Credit cycles will go on until the public learn to look out for them, and act accordingly. Business men must become bold during depressed trade, careful during excited trade, instead of acting exactly in the opposite way.

But as people did not like the tax-gatherer coming into the house to count the hearths, the window tax was substituted, because the tax-gatherer could walk round the outside of the house, and count the windows.

Now, in England, we do not tax the light of heaven at all, but we fix a man's payments by the rent of his house, the amount of his income, or the quantity of wine and beer he drinks.

96. Direct and Indirect Taxes. Taxes are called direct taxes when the payment is made by the person who is intended to bear the sacrifice.

In respect of this maxim, the customs and excise duties are very good taxes, because a person pays duty whenever he buys a bottle of spirits or an ounce of tobacco.

If he does not want to pay taxes, let him leave off drinking and smoking, which will probably be better for him in every way.

At any rate, if he can afford to drink spirits and smoke tobacco, he can afford something for the expenses of government.

So troublesome are some of the stamp-duties that in many cases people neglect to have their agreements stamped, and prefer to trust to the honesty of those they deal with.

Such agreements are thus often rendered of no legal value, and the government, for the sake of sixpence or a shilling, practically denies law to the people.

98. Protection and Free Trade. Almost every government has employed taxation at one time or another, for the purpose of encouraging industry within the country.

… own self-interest, use all kinds of bad arguments to show that if foreign products were kept out of the country, they could make as good ones in a little time, and then they could employ many people, and add to the wealth of the country.

They fall, in fact, into the fallacy of making work before described (section 55), and argue as if the purpose of work was to work, and not to enjoy abundant supplies of the necessaries and comforts of life.

Now it is impossible to deny that certain owners of lands and mines and works may be benefited by putting duties upon foreign goods of the kind which they want to produce.

Those who are already enjoying the advantage of such improper duties may, of course, be injured when they are removed.

But what we have in political economy to look to, is not the selfish interests of any particular class of people, but the good of the whole population.

Protectionists overlook two facts—(1) that the object of industry is to make goods abundant and cheap; (2) that it is impossible to import cheap foreign goods without exporting home-made goods of some sort to pay for them.

Now the only sure proof that a place is suitable is the fact that the commodities there produced are cheap and good.

If foreign manufacturers can underbid home-producers, this is the best, and in fact the only conclusive proof that the things can be made more cheaply and successfully abroad.

But then it may be objected, what is to become of workmen at home, if all our supplies be got from another country. The reply is, that such a state of things could not exist.

But even he who has read only thus far must know that political economy is no cold-blooded or dismal science, as people say.

Is it a dismal thing to relieve the labourer of his load, or to spread his table with the most nutritious food?

No doubt the science is dismal enough so far as it leads us to reflect upon the needless misery existing on every side. It is dismal to think of the hundreds of thousands who lengthen out a weary life in workhouses and prisons and infirmaries.

No doubt the science is dismal enough so far as it leads us to reflect upon the needless misery existing on every side. It is dismal to think of the hundreds of thousands who lengthen out a weary life in workhouses and prisons and infirmaries.

Strikes are dismal; lockouts are dismal; want of employment, bankruptcy, dear bread, famine, are all dismal things.

But is it political economy which causes them? Is not our science more truly described as that beneficent one, which, if sufficiently studied, would banish such dismal things, by teaching us to use our powers wisely in relieving the labours and misery of mankind.

It is dismal to think of the hundreds of thousands who lengthen out a weary life in workhouses and prisons and infirmaries. Strikes are dismal; lockouts are dismal; want of employment, bankruptcy, dear bread, famine, are all dismal things.

But is it political economy which causes them?

Is not our science more truly described as that beneficent one, which, if sufficiently studied, would banish such dismal things, by teaching us to use our powers wisely in relieving the labours and misery of mankind.