Quotes of the Day
Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.
~Thomas Sowell
The market economy has created unfathomable prosperity and, decade by decade, century by century, miraculous feats of innovation, production, distribution and social coordination. To the free market, we owe all material prosperity, all our leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and growing population, nearly everything we call life itself. Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death.
The transition to capitalism is thus accompanied by two phenomena: a decline both in fertility rates and in mortality rates. The average duration of life is prolonged.
~Ludwig von Mises in Human Action
3 Comments:
Prof, this is the day I have been waiting for!!!!! You have quoted the great Ludwig Von Mises, Dean of the Austrian school of free-market economics. Now I think I have to go easier on you.
HEROIC!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, but he also quoted Lew.
I suppose Lew's still vaguely capable of sanity as long as he sticks to Economics, but he's been a complete nutjob for decades, by all the signs, on a lot of other things... Which sorta makes quoting him dangerous, as it's easy to throw other blatantly absurd statements he's made out with the implication of "if he's this completely nuts on this, what makes you think he's not completely nuts on that?" -- not an accurate logical argument, but a very effective debate tactic.
;-)
And he's only right if you ignore the security provided by our military and police forces; the advancement of black civil rights that began with the Union military, continued with the National Guard, and was enshrined in the constitution; the many inventions and innovations that have come from public universities and institutions like NASA; the availability of beautiful natural open space to all thanks to the National Parks... the list goes on.
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