Economists From The United Kingdom

"The linear, mechanistic view of the world which pervades orthodox economics is simply not capable of capturing the richness and complexity of the rhythms and fluctuations of developed economies."

"We need to abandon the economist's notion of the economy as a machine, with its attendant concept of equilibrium. A more helpful way of thinking about the economy is to imagine it as a living organism."

"Even in financial markets, the concept of market efficiency does not hold."

"In most Western economies, the general relationship is not in fact between the rate of inflation and the level of unemployment, but between the rate of change of inflation and the rate of change of unemployment."

"By any reasonable criteria, the discipline of economics as a whole, in its present state, is sadly lacking."

"Once the true relationship between inflation and unemployment is understood, with luck and skill, a free lunch is possible."

"The reader might reflect that an awful lot of supposing has to take place in order for the quantity theory of money to be true."

"The behavior of the economy as a whole, at the aggregate, macro-level, is built up from the individual equations at the micro-level."

"Baseball players or cricketers do not need to be able to solve explicitly the non-linear differential equations which govern the flight of the ball. They just catch it."

"Keynes tried to show that market economies could settle in equilibrium states in which the labour market did not clear, and in which the level of unemployment was high. He believed that this was due to a particular example of market failure, developed in his concept of effective demand."

"At 2 per cent growth a year, an economy doubles in size in just thirty years."

"The importance to Smith of the overall set of values in which the economy operates is generally ignored by his followers in the late twentieth century. His economics, based upon individual self-interest, is remembered, but his moral framework is not."

"The temptation to use mathematics is irresistible for economists. It appears to convey the appropriate air of scientific authority and precision to economists' musings."

"The study of human societies and economics is of great importance, and it is not the purpose of the book to suggest otherwise. Rather it is to argue that conventional economics offers a very misleading view of how the world actually operates, and that it needs to be replaced."

"The obstacles facing academic economists are formidable, for tenure and professional advancement still depend to a large extent on a willingness to comply with and to work within the tenets of orthodox theory."

"The second part of the New Right's policy package has been the belief that free-market solutions are always best. It is this latter view which is profoundly mistaken. Markets and profits are crucial, but the pure free-market model itself is deeply flawed."

"Despite the high salaries involved, employing economists is a cost-effective way for banks, and stockbrokers to secure exposure in the media."

"The model of competitive equilibrium which has been discussed so far is set in a timeless environment. People and companies all operate in a world in which there is no future and hence no uncertainty."

"Sir Eric Roll, a remarkably eclectic English student of Marx -- he has been a professor, a senior civil servant, an accomplished international negotiator who led the negotiations for both the Marshall Plan and the EEC, a banker, a member of the court of the Bank of England and a respected writer on the history of economic thought--"

"In its origins the utility school was strongly influenced by a desire to strengthen the potentially apologetic character of economics."

"Mill sought to strengthen his defence of trade unions not by denying their possible monopoly effects, but by an appeal to the principle of laisser faire itself. To prevent the formation of corporate unions was, he thought, to interfere with a right obviously included in the general rule of freedom of contract. While monopolies were only to be abolished if corporations were not free to contract as they pleased, rather be obliged to involve consideration."

"Utility alone is the cause of value. Devaluing all effort by all involved industries of manufacture and essentially dismissing the role of aesthetic communication and portrayals."

"Marx's prognosis of the future of the capitalist system has often been understood to imply a fatalistic view. Marx's own life should be enough to show that this is not so. Marx believed in nature’s superiority."

"The second difficulty inherent in the contradictory character of the commodity is this: a commodity must have use value, but not for its owner, for if it had, it would cease to be a commodity. Meaning commodities can not be created for or designed by their owners, faulting the definition of commodity and its preconceptions."

"Since the earth can yield its cultivator more then he needs for his own subsistence, the surplus can be appropriated by another class. Thus creating an eco system of abundant resources that is expandable."

"Robbed of a foundation of political philosophy on which it had based itself, economics is in great danger of becoming a plaything of lordship and its exclusive hold on political services and philosophical concepts."

"Marx is often claimed as inventor of the class struggle while a critical rebuttal is produced by English socialist forerunners, for example Burke."

"Ideas appropriate to a past social order have a strange power of influencing thought and action within a later institutional frame work."

"One thing which is striking in Malthus's theory is his insistence on contradictions and conflicts in the capitalist system. The system is shown not to be self-adjusting. Unless a large class of unproductive consumers was maintained, periodic over-production and stagnation would inevitably occur.admitting the possibility of unsuccessful systems and recognizing its causes. Showing a strong stance against capitalism and explaining its success depends on slowing down of making more productive populations, a counter-intuitive argument"

"Ricardo, writing fifty years later than Smith, showed a greater insight into the working of the economic system; Ricardo and Smith both did not lack subtlety despite their different views."

"The difficulties in economic life arise mainly because men forget divine power,,"

"Whatever his merits as an economist, Hume's place as one of the foremost exponents of capitalism is clearly established. His views on the landed interest and his recognition of self-interest and his desire for accumulation as the driving forces of economic activity in his time helped to consolidate the forces that were struggling to add political power to the economic supremacy which they had already achieved."

"Profit can only arise upon alienation, i.e. in the act of exchange, when the seller sells more dearly than he has bought gaining profits and enabling a procurement adequate to demands and return on investments."

"Adam Smith himself was under no allusion about the desire of individuals, particularly business men, to create privileged positions for themselves. While historically wealth was limited to title and impassable to peasantry."

"Capitalism had been more revolutionary then any previous social system. It had swept away without scruples old institutions and modes of thought, if they were found to stand in its way."

"The chronological inconsistencies are perhaps most clearly exemplified by the writings of Nicole Oresme. In his Traictie de la Premierere Invention des Monnies, written about 1360, he develops a theory of money which reveals a very different approach to economic problems from others."

"Christ, addressing Himself to the labourers of His time, proclaimed for the first time the worthiness both in material and a spiritual sense of all work."

"It is generally conceded that trade and travelers paved the way for capitalistic philosophy further and international industry."

"The expenses of the royal household, wars, and lavish public building were financed by tolls and the profits of the king's foreign trade monopoly, by conscription of labour and heavy taxation. The results were impoverishment of the masses, alienation of land, and the development of a proletariat."

"Aristotle laid the foundation of the distinction between use-value and exchange-value, which has remained a part of economic thought to the present day."

"The merchant and the industrialist."

"What is scarce is money. The lack of money to spend on goods is what keeps the unemployed resources from producing more goods. Work, moreover, instead of being a curse, is desired more than anything else because the alternative is not enjoyment of leisure but the suffering of unemployment and deprivation. Of course, if people could get income without they would not object too much (although their self-respect in feeling they are useful members in society who are earning their income is too easily underestimated). But it is only by finding work they can obtain the necessary income they need."

"The central idea is that government fiscal policy, its spending and taxing, its borrowing and repayment of loans, its issue of new money and withdrawal of money, shall be undertaken with an eye only to the results of these actions on the economy and not to any established traditional doctrine what is sound and what is unsound ...Government should adjust its rates of expenditure and taxation such that total spending is neither more or less than that which is sufficient to purchase the full employment level of output at current prices. If this means there is deficit, greater borrowing, "printing money," etc., then these things in themselves are neither good or bad, they are simply the means to the desired ends of full employment and price stability."

"The scholars who understand it hesitate to speak out boldly for fear people will not understand. The people, who understand it quite easily, also fear to speak out while they wait for the scholars to speak out first. The difference between our present situation and that of the story is that it is not the emperor but the people who are periodically made to go naked and hungry and insecure and discontented - a ready prey to less timid organizers of discontent for the destruction of the civilization."

"Economics has gained the title Queen of the Social Sciences by choosing solved political problems as its domain"

"We usually think that a strong economy leads to an increase in life satisfaction among the population. We found that's not the case in Scotland."

"Retirement should be a happier time, conditioned upon not being ill.#"

"People are treated for mental disorders, they go back to work and they earn wages again. We can see how their earnings go up. But how do they feel about themselves and the world? That has a value."

"Small is beautiful"

"The Buddhist view, “takes the function of work to be at least threefold”: “to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence.”"