Economists From Switzerland

"There is a remarkable tendency in our time: when we require some ideas to solve a problem, we establish an organization instead. The organization is of no practical help, in fact it increases the confusion, does not do what it should, creates a growing bureaucracy that then becomes an end in itself; and finally goes on existing long after the entire world has forgotten when and why the organization was ever established."

"The great pre-Christian civilizations of Greece and Rome had no religious wars and had a far healthier view of their frolicking gods and goddesses than the intolerant monotheistic Christianity that later came to dominate Europe."

"The planet also needs an alternative geopolitical force to the American Christian Fundamentalist brand of hegemonic thinking that the Bush Administration has generated - and that is not likely to evaporate even after his departure from office."

"It was in a recent conversation with an Indian religious guru that I was also pleased to discover I could adhere to his religious tenets, while maintaining my secular convictions. No imam or priest would allow me that.""

"Piccinino in particular was jealous of Sforza; there could be no peace that this general had taken his place among the sovereigns with the purchase of the March, while he himself, who in talents and valor in Italy was equal to Sforza, he himself, who, as heir and pupil of Braccio, could have aspire to the sovereignty that this general had formed, had only a precarious existence dependent on the prince who hired him. (volume IX, p. 149)"

"To G. C. Sismodo de' Sismondi | solemn historian and economist | for his works I deserve him | more than can be written | of Italy of France | and of the human race. (Giovanni Battista Niccolini)"

"J. C. L. Simondo de' Sismondi, History of the French, vol. V, for Nicolò Bettoni, Milan, C.E.1823."

"J. C. L. Simondo de' Sismondi, History of the French, vol. XII, Swiss typography, Capolago, C.E.1838."

"J. C. L. Simondo Sismondi, History of the Italian republics of the middle centuries, translation from the French, Volume I, Italy, C.E.1817."

"J. C. L. Simondo Sismondi, History of the Italian republics of the middle centuries, translation from the French, Tome IX, C.E.1818."

"J. C. L. Simondo Sismondi, History of the Italian republics of the middle centuries, translated from the French, Tome X, C.E.1818."

"Political economy is perhaps the only science whose immediate object is the universal beneficence and prosperity of men; because it is it that claims to teach the Government how it can preserve and increase the wealth of nations; encourage agriculture, from which abundance will arise; make trade flourish, which will divide the goods of the earth among its inhabitants according to their industry; perfect the arts, which will multiply the enjoyments of men, by making the progress of all the other sciences tend to their advantage. [...] A science which is announced as having as its aim the prosperity of all men becomes almost an object of derision if it is enclosed in a vain theory, the application of which is never undertaken. Such is perhaps the fate of Political Economy today. [...] Certainly, one of the great causes of their neglect of theories which could have increased their enlightenment would be found in the character of the men of government; but since we cannot expect them to be sensitive to the criticism of men of letters, or to submit with docility to the lessons that are claimed to be given to them, it is a question here of seeking the faults of the writings on Political Economy, and not theirs, whether we want to increase the influence of political theories on Governments, and bring them closer to their purpose."

"Universal competition and the effort to produce more and more at a lower price... is a dangerous system."

"[On Vittorio Alfieri] [...] this quivering impatience, which pushes him forward towards a goal he could not distinguish... this painful agitation of a soul in anguish in all the bonds of society, in all conditions, in all countries; ... this imperious need for something freer in the State, more proud in man, more devoted in love, more complete in friendship; ... this ardor in search of another existence, of another universe, which he sought in vain, with the speed of a messenger, from one end of Europe to the other, and which he could not find in the real world ..."

"The most licentious of all the poets of this libertine school was a Sovereign, a Jerusalem Knight, returned from the Crusade, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. His great joviality and spirit had generally forgiven the scandal of his customs, although in him religious profanation was always mixed with debauchery. He had built in Niort a house dedicated to gathering his Beauty; he called it his Monastery, and he had conferred the titles of Abbess, Prioress and other monastic dignities to the Courtesans who lodged there, in adequate proportion to the impudence of their life. (vol. V, chapter XII, p. 62)"

"The young king [Charles VI of France] had never been subjected to any discipline nor roughed up by the slightest study. He knew nothing other than what he might have learned by conversing in the courts; half enough to acquire a very light set of ideas and common notions, to form the gracefulness of manners and to procure that certain nobility and affability of character that was noted in Charles VI, and for which the monarch whose reign was the most everlasting scourge that ever afflicted France, had the ridiculous of Beloved. But no positive knowledge, neither of science, nor of administration, nor of politics, nor of religion had, on the contrary, been acquired by him. (vol. XII, chapter XXI, pp. 8-9)"

"This unfortunate monarch [Charles VI of France] enjoyed waging war and wandering among the tumult of arms; and although incapable of distinguishing friends from enemies, he was always willing to fight against anyone who was pointed out to him as infenso and rebellious, and also to be cruel against it. (vol. XII, chapter XXX, p. 430)"

"Niccolò Piccinino, leader of the soldiers trained first by Braccio [da Montone], was among the other Italian generals the most loyal to the Duke of Milan. He would still have considered himself the best and perhaps placed above Francesco Sforza, if he had not sometimes risked his own reputation through excessive daring. (volume IX, p. 116)"

"Piccinino, already in his old age, could not make peace with the fact that with so many battles, with so many victories, he had not been able to acquire a land where his head could rest. All the great captains of his century had successively risen to sovereign power; he seemed to have more right to it than anyone else, since he should have received the principality of Braccio by hereditary title as he received his army; yet he alone was neither richer nor more powerful at the end of his long glorious career than he was at the beginning. He had lost Bologna when he thought he would make it his capital; two routs in a very short time had squandered his riches and scattered his soldiers; one of his sons was a prisoner, the other a fugitive, and he could only place his hopes in the generosity of a prince [Filippo Maria Visconti] accused of inconstancy by all Italy, and often of perfidy. This prince had actually caused his ruin by deceiving him. (volume IX, pp. 255-256)"

"No monster ever pushed ferocity as far as Dracula; no one invented more terrible supplicants. He finally fell victim to the horror he had inspired. (volume X, p. 213)"

"A History of Economic Theory offers a comprehensive account of the builders and building blocks of modern mainstream economics. Jurg Niehans shows how the analytical tools used by economists have evolved from the eighteenth century to the present. Niehans first surveys the development of classical economics from the scholastic and mercantilist traditions to Marx. He then follows the progress of marginalist economics from Thunen to Fischer. In the book's final section, he describes economic theory in the model-building era from Pigou and Keynes to Rational Expectations."

"If one could be perfectly certain that everybody always stays within his budget constraint, everybody could be allowed to obtain goods without a specific quid pro quo."

"The equilibrium price level is determined at the point where the money market is in equilibrium. The temporary suspension of Walras' Law, far from making economic nonsense, thus appears as the crucial "trick" by which the tatonnement process is decomposed in two parts. This analysis confirms that for a neoclassical general equilibrium system with neutral money there is indeed a consistent decomposition procedure, based on appropriate compensation principles, permitting the determination of real variables in the real sector while the price level is determined in the monetary sector. However, the amount of intellectual effort which, in the wake of Lange and Patinkin, was devoted to this issue, is entirely out of proportion to its economic significance. The real economic question is not whether a system can be dichotomized, but whether money is neutral."

"There is a widespread impression today that the history of economics is a sequence of revolutions and counter-revolutions, successive schools rising to dominance just to be deposed in a crisis by another school. According to this view, paraphrasing Marx, all history of economics is a history of school struggles, punctuated by revolutions."

"Economics should be under no illusion that central banking will ever become a science."

"Money is here called the a medium and not, as customary, a unit of account because, clearly, money itself is not a unit, but the good whose unit is used as the unit of account."