Classical Economics Quotes

My citizen activism is a direct outgrowth of a classical and fiscally conservative training in economics at Harvard. It is a perspective rooted in one of the most important concepts in economics - the need for government intervention in the presence of a market failure.

Labor is the true standard of value.

The British system denied any role for human creativity, and instead argued, that if man merely followed his hedonistic desires, pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, objective laws would naturally guide society to achieve the best allocation of wealth.

Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better.

The proposition of Mr. Ricardo, which states that a rise in the price of labour lowers the price of a large class of commodities, has undoubtedly a very paradoxical air; but it is, nevertheless, true, and the appearance of paradox would vanish, if it were stated more naturally and correctly.

Modern sociology is virtually an attempt to take up the larger program of social analysis and interpretation which was implicit in Adam Smith's moral philosophy, but which was suppressed for a century by prevailing interest in the technique of the production of wealth.

Let's take Adam Smith, the patron-saint of capitalism, what did he think? He thought the main human instinct was sympathy. In fact, take a look at the word "invisible hand." Which, of course, you learned about, or you think you've learned about. Take a look at the actual way in which he used the phrase. There is almost no relation to what is claimed.

The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor.

Two hundred years ago the first liberal economist, Adam Smith, warned businessmen that they could absorb only a certain amount of rigidity. In the easy days after World War II... wage rises could be financed out of inflationary price increases.

The economic concept of value does not occur in antiquity .

Growth theory did not begin with my articles of 1956 and 1957, and it certainly did not end there. Maybe it began with 'The Wealth of Nations'; and probably even Adam Smith had predecessors.

During the two centuries since the publication of 'The Wealth of Nations,' the main activity of economists, it seems to me, has been to fill the gaps in Adam Smith's system, to correct his errors and to make his analysis vastly more exact.

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold... has its natural and its market price.

Until Keynes, politicians had not needed economists for help in running the country any more than they had needed astronomers. But Keynes made them indispensible.

Adam Smith, and other able writers to whom I have alluded, not having viewed correctly the principles of rent, have, it appears to me, overlooked many important truths, which can only be discovered after the subject of rent is thoroughly understood.

Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo ! There is something about these three figures to evoke more than ordinary sentiments from us their children in the spirit.

In the late 1960s, the New Classical economists saw the same weaknesses in the microfoundations of macroeconomics that have motivated me. They hated its lack of rigor. And they sacked it.

The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).

I've been a faithful reader of the great classical documents of economics, or tried to be. The first book in the field that I ever read was Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall. I suppose subsequently I would have to pick out Keynes, Adam Smith, Marx.

The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour.

We're supposed to worship Adam Smith but you're not supposed to read him. That's too dangerous.

Adam Smith is misread as being amoral precisely because people don't read his first book, because they don't read 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments.'

To the question how one kind of labor can be measured against another, how the labor of the artisan can be measured against the labor of the artist, how the labor of the strong can be measured against the labor of the weak, the communists can give no answer.

It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would turn out to be all for the best. It was the mysterious doctrine that selfishness would do the work of unselfishness.