"The idea of the State-controlled economy is not modern at all. It is very old; and not only very old, but refuted and superseded long ago. It is quite true that the great principles of capitalism and free enterprise were expounded and explored around the beginning of the nineteenth century. Newton discovered gravitation in the seventeenth century. Copernicus proved in the sixteenth century that the earth revolves round the sun. But these truths are not thereby "out-of-date". They are not refuted by the lapse of time. The errors which they replaced are errors still. It is the Socialists and the economic planners who are the Ptolemaics and the flat-earthers of the modern world. They have not moved on beyond capitalism: they have moved back before it. In order to find the parallels to their faith in state regulation and control of the economy you have to go back behind Adam Smith and his contemporaries to the elaborate management of trade in the guilds and boroughs of the Middle Ages or to the French bureaucrats of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomPolitical leadersPoets from EnglandPeople from BirminghamAnglicans from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Speech in Wolvehampton (18 December 1964), quoted in A Nation Not Afraid: The Thinking of Enoch Powell (1965), p. 15
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Enoch Powell
politician, linguist, poet
1912 – 1998 · United Kingdom
John Enoch Powell (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974), then Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP (1974–1987), and was Minister of Health (1960–1963).
352 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Enoch Powell →
Related Quotes
"Some problems are unavoidable. Some evils can be coped with to a certain extent, but not prevented. But that a nation…"
"Once you go nuclear at all, you go nuclear for good; and you know it. Here is the parting of the ways, for from this …"
"I find in my constituency in the last few weeks an ominous deterioration, which is taking the form not of discriminat…"
"Often when I am kneeling down in church, I think to myself how much we should thank God, the Holy Ghost for the gift …"
"He talks so fascinatingly on history, architecture and many subjects that politics seldom came up, but I should be di…"
"There is a sense of hopelessness and helplessness which comes over persons who are trapped or imprisoned, when all th…"
"She is becoming afraid to go out. Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox. When she goes t…"
"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood.""
"Integration of races of totally disparate origins and culture is one of the great myths of our time. It has never wor…"
"It is advertising that enthrones the customer as king. This infuriates the socialist...[it is] the crossing of the bo…"