"The entire thrust of neoclassical thought is to argue that the free market economy is an efficient system that will optimize utility for all mankind, if only government will get out of the way. It therefore departs from classical economists such as Adam Smith, who recognized the importance of governments for regulating markets and preventing monopolies."

"The real reason for the longevity of the neoclassical model have less to do with science, and more to do with the social dynamics of the universities that propagate it, and its appeal to a particular mindset."

"The idea that money begets money, and that the rich and powerful enjoy unfair advantages, goes against what we are taught - or like to believe - about the capitalist system."

"It can be annoying to find out the name of a famous local landmark has no significance other than belonging to some distant relation or drinking buddy of the explorer."

"The neoclassical dogma of diminishing returns is completely wrong - success begets success and wealth begets wealth."

"The economy is a nonlinear fractal system, where the smallest scales are linked to the largest, and the decisions of the central bank are affected by the gut instincts of the people on the street."

"To balance the economy, we need first to balance our priorities, and abandon rigid ideologies."

"To build a genuinely sustainable economy, we need to recognize and embrace the dynamic nature of the world, and free ourselves from the dead holds of static dogma."

"Orthodox tools based on a normal distribution therefore fail exactly where they are most needed, at the extremes."

"It has become increasingly evident, at least among those who aren't currency traders or true believers in the optimality of free markets, that it would be nice if this system could calm down a touch. One option is the Tobin tax, which would impose a tax of around 0.1 percent on currency trades, and act as a kind of damper on speculation."

"Economists often talk about the benefits of choice, but rational economic man doesn't actually have much freedom to chose, because he is a slave to his own preferences."

"The strength of capitalism does not lie in the neoclassical idea of stability, but in its ability to unleash this creative energy. like a chaotic mathematical system, it is capable of producing surprise."

"The economy is crooked not straight; and mainstream economists are like flat-earthers who keep saying the world is flat despite all the evidence to the contrary."

"The market can quickly seize up. Prices don't adjust in a smooth continuous fashion, but instead abruptly reconfigure themselves, like the earth's crust during an earthquake."

"The race to the moon was never really about the moon - its utility didn't rest in samples of moon rock. It was about capitalism versus communism, right versus left."

"Perfect order is boring, perfect randomness is boring, but complex systems are interesting."

"Money, having freed itself from the physical universe, has become number itself, and finance a strange form of mathematical alchemy."

"If the aim of economics is really to provide the greatest happiness to the most people, than it is rather shocking to discover that economic growth has no net effect on happiness. So what has gone wrong with the neoclassical prospect?"

"For even money itself has no value if there is no network of people to recognize it."

"Adam Smith's invisible hand does exist, but as an emergent property of a complex system. It has a fuzzy tendency to reduce big price discrepancies, but it acts in a rather haphazard way."

"A society in which each person is hell bent on maximizing his or her own utility, may therefore have declining overall utility."

"Not only is Homo economicus self-centered, he is a murdering psychopath. However, as with much of neoclassical economic thought, there is an element of circularity here."

"The invisible hand is an emergent property of this system, which never reaches an optimal equilibrium, but instead is fundamentally dynamic and unstable, with complex effects on society."

"Mathematics was not just about keeping track of were the moon was going, but also where the money was going."

"Advanced technology is great at tasks such as keeping an airliner flying several thousand feet in the air, but is easily crippled by social complications."

"There is something intrinsically upside down and counter-intuitive in the relationship between money and happiness."

"Bandura’s findings were particularly important in 1960s America, when lawmakers, broadcasters, and the general public were engaged in serious debate regarding the effects of television violence on the behavior of children."

"If self-efficacy is lacking, people tend to behave ineffectually, even though they know what to do."

"Persons who have a strong sense of efficacy deploy their attention and effort to the demands of the situation and are spurred by obstacles to greater effort."

"Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure."

"In many respects, the Second World War was a continuation of the First, a conflict triggered by the mismatch between industrial power and imperial reach."

"Once capitalist classes learn to live with unions — which they generally do reluctantly, only after efforts to crush them have failed — they then attempt to co-opt organized labour. They do so by courting a "special relationship" with union leaders who, as their organizations become larger and more complex, typically assume the role of full time union functionaries."

"The Greek philosopher Plato may have rejected the idea that "might makes right" some 2,500 years ago, but America and its allies today make it the cornerstone of foreign policy."

"What was it, then, about the development of capitalism that gave rise to modern racial ideology?"

"The fundamental truth about globalization — that it represents freedom for capital and unfreedom for labour — is especially clear where global migrants are concerned."

"In short, the rules of behaviour in capitalist society systematically produce irrational consequences."

"Genuine growth is always dialogical — it requires engagement in a dynamic, developing, and open-ended dialogue."

"The neoliberal utopia of unrestrained capitalism is being created by a war against the poor and the commons. In fact, the "new enclosures" are a sign that the struggles that marked the birth of capitalism are still very much alive."

"Common wealth is in the process of being transferred from the public domain to the private sector."

"Contrary to liberal myth, Smith was not an apologist for capitalists. He argued in fact, that capitalists always seek "to deceive and oppress the public" by conspiring to inflate their prices and profits."

"Under , in other words, the right of corporations to bring thousands of tons of hazardous waste into local communities overrides the right of residents to protect their health."

"Put baldly, globalization has been nothing less than a mechanism for a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich — in other words, exactly what it is was designed to be."

"Globalization is thus also about global commodification of labour; it is about — global proletarianization — the creation of a world working class for capital to exploit."

"Behind their fluffy rhetoric about free trade and free markets lurks a hostility toward freedom for ordinary people — and a love affair with police and prisons."

"A society that has moved beyond commodification is one that has embraced the most thoroughgoing radical democracy in all spheres of social life."

"To make history — to change the actual course of world events — is intoxicating, inspiring, and life-transforming."

"Corporate globalization and the economic agreements designed to entrench it have little to do with trade — and all but the most ignorant neo-liberal pundits surely know this too."

"When history moves — really moves — it does so in great convulsive jolts."

"At its heart, this book is about where this new left has come from, and where it might be going."

""Free trade" is a slogan used to attack practices designed by competitor economies to protect their own interests."