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| Quotations - General | [Quote No.36308] Need Area: Friends > General
"The sure way to wickedness is through wickedness." - Proverb
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| [Quote No.36309] Need Area: Friends > General
"Why should any man have power over any other man's faith ...?
" - George Fox
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| [Quote No.36316] Need Area: Friends > General
"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated [debased] in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome." - George Orwell
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| [Quote No.36318] Need Area: Friends > General
"All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting." - George Orwell
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| [Quote No.36320] Need Area: Friends > General
"Big Brother [government and big business] is watching you." - George Orwell
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| [Quote No.36322] Need Area: Friends > General
"During times of universal deceit [by politicians, big business and the media], telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act [for freedom and justice]." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36323] Need Area: Friends > General
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36325] Need Area: Friends > General
"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented [by politicians and the media, in order to win over the 'hearts and minds' of the majority of the population and thereby legitimise the actions and expenses incurred by the government] not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36326] Need Area: Friends > General
"Freedom [of expression] is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
" - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36327] Need Area: Friends > General
"Freedom [of expression] is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. [Their right to freedom of expression, in turn, is the right for them not to listen or, if having listened, to be able to express their responses.]" - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36330] Need Area: Friends > General
"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' [as] All issues are political issues..." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36331] Need Area: Friends > General
"...politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36332] Need Area: Friends > General
"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36333] Need Area: Friends > General
"It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36336] Need Area: Friends > General
"Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36339] Need Area: Friends > General
"On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time." - George Orwell
George Orwell [1903 – 1950], was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36341] Need Area: Friends > General
"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36342] Need Area: Friends > General
"Patriotism [and nationalism] is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36343] Need Area: Friends > General
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men [and women] stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36344] Need Area: Friends > General
"Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36345] Need Area: Friends > General
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder [in wars of conquest and empire] respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36346] Need Area: Friends > General
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. [Never forget what Lord Acton said, 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.]" - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36350] Need Area: Friends > General
"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36351] Need Area: Friends > General
"We are all 'icebergs', with most of who we are below the waterline and out of sight." - Seymour@imagi-natives.com
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| [Quote No.36352] Need Area: Friends > General
"Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36355] Need Area: Friends > General
"The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36357] Need Area: Friends > General
"The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36358] Need Area: Friends > General
"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36361] Need Area: Friends > General
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36365] Need Area: Friends > General
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them! [A lot of these ideas are found in investing, economics and politics.]" - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36366] Need Area: Friends > General
"There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36367] Need Area: Friends > General
"To an ordinary human being [as opposed to the enlightened and 'saintly'], love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36368] Need Area: Friends > General
"To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36369] Need Area: Friends > General
"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed [in ‘big business’ and the political] classes think they are going to profit from it." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36370] Need Area: Friends > General
"War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36371] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Some political propaganda is dangerously wrong. Here are some examples from George Orwell’s dystopian parody of future civilisation, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. They are exaggerated to make their duplicity obvious:] War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36373] Need Area: Friends > General
"[In many countries around the globe, threatened by avaricious and empire-building political powers, defensive diplomatic, intelligence and military forces stand ready to repel any incursions, at a moments notice, and well might they say...] We sleep safe in our beds because rough men [and women] stand ready in the night to visit [defensive force and even] violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36374] Need Area: Friends > General
"Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... [even] a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion […an attempt to see something in a new way and to freely express an opinion or an attitude. While some are simply humorous, others make us think while we laugh and, with arguably the best, they can change the way we think and see the world]." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36375] Need Area: Friends > General
"When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic." - George Orwell
[1903 – 1950], George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was an English author and journalist. His work is known for its keen intelligence and wit, profound awareness of social injustice, and an intense opposition to totalitarianism. He is best known for the satirical novella ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and the dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (published in 1949) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author.
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| [Quote No.36382] Need Area: Friends > General
"Everyone seems normal until you get to know them." - Wynn Davis and John Maddy
John Maddy is President of Greater Horizons, Inc.
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| [Quote No.36416] Need Area: Friends > General
"‘Mises and Bastiat on How Democracy Goes Wrong’, Part I [of 2. Part 2 follows below]:
‘It is only to be expected that the general public prefers to blame political insiders—rather than itself — for bad policies. But economists also... rarely put the man in the street on their list of suspects.’
Economists are habitually disappointed by what governments do. Dictatorships are the worst offenders, featuring a rogue's gallery of impoverishing policies from farm collectivization to backyard steel mills to expulsions of minority merchant classes. But democracies also frequently pursue policies — like protectionism and price controls — that every introductory economics textbook concludes are a costly burden upon the general public. How is this possible? How can majoritarian politics durably sustain policies harmful to majority interests?
The most popular way to resolve this puzzle is to blame special interests for undermining the democratic process. Protectionism hurts most people, but the minority which benefits lobbies heavily on its behalf. The main problem with this account, however, is that public opinion research — not to mention everyday conversation — routinely finds that the policies that economists do not like are popular [ith the general public, which is important in a democracy or, for that matter, in any political system]. The plot thickens.
Before going back to the drawing board to come up with a new explanation, it is a good idea to at least investigate whether anyone in the history of economics has already grappled with these difficulties. It turns out that two economists—one French, the other Austrian—worked out a rather sophisticated account long ago. The first is Frédéric Bastiat, writing in the mid-19th century. The second is [the Austrian economics theorist] Ludwig von Mises, who published most of his relevant work a little less than a century later.
One striking feature of the Bastiat-Mises view is that politicians are actually tightly constrained by public opinion. On their account, democratic competition keeps elected officials in line; if they deviate from majority preferences, they lose elections and their jobs. Bastiat affirms that ‘[P]ublic opinion, whether enlightened or misguided, is nonetheless mistress of the world.’ Vestigial departures from democratic principles in contemporary France do not impress him: ‘Political power, the law-making ability, the enforcement of the law, have all passed, virtually, if not yet completely in fact, into the hands of the people, along with universal suffrage [right to vote].’ His assessment of modern democracy would probably be even less qualified.
Mises elaborates on Bastiat's point, freely comparing politicians to businessmen. Both face intense competitive pressure:
‘A statesman can succeed only insofar as his plans are adjusted to the climate of opinion of his time, that is to the ideas that have got hold of his fellows' minds. He can become a leader only if he is prepared to guide people along the paths they want to walk and toward the goal they want to attain [although it should be noted that he can and should attempt to persuasively explain how their ultimate goal might be better achieved with a different method, if that seems best, before acquiescing or, if the issue is important enough, resigning in protest, to have the courage of and to be consistent with his convictions and to maintain his ‘honour’/reputation/self-esteem]. A statesman who antagonizes public opinion is doomed to failure... [T]he politician must give the people what they wish to get, very much as a businessman must supply the customers with the things they wish to acquire.’
The last sentence is especially striking because Mises has boundless confidence in the propensity of entrepreneurs to serve consumer interests:
In the capitalist system of society's economic organization the entrepreneurs determine the course of production. In the performance of this function they are unconditionally and totally subject to the sovereignty of the buying public, the consumers. If they fail to produce in the cheapest and best possible way the commodities which the consumers are asking for most urgently, they suffer losses and are finally eliminated from their entrepreneurial position [allowing more responsive and better consumer need and desire satisfaction achieving and financially sound entrepreneurs and enterprises to take their place].
In modern terminology, neither Bastiat nor Mises worries much about democracy's ‘principal-agent’ problem, its ability to match voters' wishes and leaders' actions.
How then can they share other economists' judgment that democracies frequently select policies contrary to majority interests? The answer is that they question the wisdom of public opinion. According to Bastiat and Mises, systematically mistaken economic beliefs—or, as Bastiat terms them, ‘sophisms,’ are widespread. [This should not really be a surprise, after all the formal, general economic education of most voters is unfortunately very poor, due to an anachronistic public education system more orientated to providing workers for the economy than providing people with the necessary skills to live well in an interdependent, fast changing environment, which of course would entail a thorough understanding of how an economy works, after all they will be part of one for all of their life, much of their and their family’s financial security will be bound up in how well it works and that, in a democracy, where they will be expected or at least have the right to vote, as most political questions are inextricably linked to how it will be paid for and how it will effect the economy, specifically and generally, they should have developed at least the rudimentary ability to judge, economically as well as socially, each option, policy and political party against the alternatives available or in other words, the ‘opportunity costs’.]
To take his most famous example, Bastiat accuses the public of ‘broken window’ thinking—ignoring opportunity costs. Its members favor wasteful government programs because they fail to consider the alternative uses of wasted resources. They want a large military in peacetime because they implicitly assume that there is nothing else for discharged soldiers to do. They favor fruitless public works projects to ‘create jobs,’ not realizing that the taxes required to fund these projects destroy as many jobs as they create.
Bastiat similarly argues that democracies adopt protectionism because the majority mistakenly thinks that imports are bad for the economy: ‘Protectionism is too popular for its adherents to be regarded as insincere. If the majority had faith in free trade, we should have free trade.’ Unfortunately, popular views remain influential even if they are wrong, or positively confused. ‘When one of these fundamental errors... becomes firmly established as a conventional judgment, unquestionably accepted and agreed to by everybody, it tends to proceed from theory to practice, from thought to action.’
When Bastiat rails against popular ‘sophisms,’ [which the Encarta Dictionary defines as the plural of ‘an argument or explanation that seems very clever or subtle on the surface but is actually flawed, misleading, or intended to deceive,] he is often misinterpreted as merely an economic educator. But his point is much deeper. He is not just describing the public's errors, and urging the economics [and education] profession to correct them. He is also asserting that until those errors are corrected, they will influence policy in destructive directions. In other words, Bastiat is laying out a descriptive theory of how real-world politics works: The further the average citizen's views are from the truth, the lower the quality of policy [and therefore government and long-term community living standards that the jurisdiction and citizen gets]. Or as Mises explains:
‘Democracy guarantees a system of government in accordance with the wishes and plans of the majority. But it cannot prevent majorities from falling victim to erroneous ideas and from adopting inappropriate policies which not only fail to realize the ends aimed at but result in disaster.’
Bastiat anticipated the rise of socialism, but Mises actually lived through it. It is therefore unsurprising that Mises above all lamented the public's tendency to underrate the economic benefits of the free market and overrate the economic benefits of government ownership. Thus, in the conclusion of his [famous book] ‘Socialism’, he bluntly states that:
‘The world inclines to Socialism because the great majority of people want it. They want it because they believe that Socialism will guarantee a higher standard of welfare. The loss of this conviction would signify the end of Socialism.’
Mises also highlights more specific economic misconceptions, and links them to narrower policies. Like Bastiat, he blames protectionism on the simple-minded but popular view that imports are bad: ‘The ultimate foundation of modern protectionism and of the striving for economic autarky [independent of international trade and not reliant upon imported goods] of each country is to be found in this mistaken belief that they are the best means to make every citizen, or at least the immense majority of them, richer.’ Mises similarly observes, in a passage highly relevant to permanent high unemployment in modern Europe's heavily regulated labor markets, that the average citizen fails to connect the dots: ‘Public opinion fails to realize that the real cause for the permanent and large unemployment is to be sought in the wage policy of the trade unions and in the assistance granted to such policy by the government.’
How original is the Bastiat-Mises explanation for poor economic policies? Modern economists often discuss voters' [freely chosen] ‘rational ignorance’ — not bothering to learn about problems that they as individuals can do little to change [and disregarding their legal and social contribution to the political process in democracies, including elections and responsive local representation that should represent their concerns in the representative assembly]. But Bastiat and Mises deviate from the usual story in two interesting ways.
For one thing, most economists focus on voters' lack of incentive to learn about the details of policy: Which industry is getting what kind of government help, who is doing what to whom. This counterfactually [contrary to fact] assumes that state intervention is unpopular to begin with. To come to terms with the facts, it is necessary to home in on more elementary errors, as Bastiat and Mises repeatedly do. Protectionism exists because the electorate thinks it is a good idea, not because they do not know exactly which industries are benefiting.
Bastiat and Mises also recognize, as few modern economists do, that it is often implausible to see the public's errors as mundane ignorance. If the electorate merely knew little about economics, its members should essentially be agnostic on the subject. In practice, however, they often enthusiastically support protectionism, labor market regulation, and other misguided policies in spite of their lack of study.
At the risk of being rude, both Bastiat and Mises characterize the opponents of basic economics as willfully illogical ‘fanatics’ rather than simply uninformed. Mises does not disguise his irritation: ‘The fanatics obstinately refuse to listen to the teachings of economic theory. Experience fails to teach them anything. They stubbornly adhere to their previous opinions.’ Bastiat is more eager to build a dialogue, but he too feels like he is up against a brick wall of dogmatism: ‘It is not my expectation that when the reader puts down this book he will cry out, 'I know!' Would to heaven that he might honestly say to himself, 'I don't know!' ‘
Couldn't one shift the blame to interest groups for spreading false information? As comfortable as this approach sounds, Mises eschews it. If the public believes whatever the interest groups tell them, they can still be faulted for failing to exercise common-sense scepticism [which could be argued is the critical attitude of all intelligent and successful people].
The main propaganda trick of the supporters of the allegedly ‘progressive’ policy of government control is to blame capitalism for all that is unsatisfactory in present-day conditions and to extol the blessings which socialism has in store for mankind. They have never attempted to prove their fallacious [mistaken, deceptive] dogmas [set of beliefs held to be true] or still less to refute the objections raised by the economists. All they did was to call their adversaries names and to cast suspicion upon their motives. And, unfortunately, the average citizen cannot see through these stratagems.
Presumably the average voter understands the general principle that name-calling is not proof. Indeed, calling your opponents names should count against you; it suggests that you have nothing better to say. If the public finds such messages persuasive, it is because they have chosen to relax ordinary intellectual standards.
It should be clear that Bastiat and Mises have a contrarian outlook on politics. It is only to be expected that the general public prefers to blame political insiders — rather than itself — for bad policies. But economists also tend to pin bad policies on special interests, and rarely put the man [and woman] in the street on their list of suspects. Although the economics of Bastiat and Mises is in many ways quite ‘orthodox,’ their economics of politics is decidedly non-conformist.
All this makes for a stimulating read. But ideas have to be judged primarily by their compatibility with the observed facts, not their entertainment value. In my next column, I present surprising evidence that Bastiat and Mises are indeed on to something. Modern public opinion data on economic beliefs and policy preferences are hard for the orthodox view to handle, but are remarkably consistent with distinctive Bastiat-Mises approach.
--------‘Mises and Bastiat on How Democracy Goes Wrong’, Part II:
‘The Bastiat-Mises view implies two striking and testable predictions about the configuration of public opinion: First, the status quo will be popular.... Second, the public will have systematically biased beliefs about economics.’ In my last column, I set out Bastiat and Mises' voter-centered explanation for the prevalence of bad economic policies. On the conventional view — widely accepted by economists, pundits, and the man in the street — the public demands policies in its own best interest, but the political system ignores their wishes. Bastiat and Mises dispute both parts of this story. They assert that democratic competition effectively drives politicians to do what the people want, but to their collective misfortune, many popular beliefs about economics are systematically mistaken. Sophisms—like ‘Exports make us rich, imports make us poor’ — are widespread.
Who is right? The Bastiat-Mises view implies two striking and testable predictions about the configuration of public opinion:
First, the status quo will be popular. To be more precise, the median or ‘swing’ voter should oppose changes in existing policies. Second, the public will have systematically biased beliefs about economics. More specifically, the general public should systematically overestimate the net economic benefits of the policies that economists disfavour [disregard, disapprove, consider not helpful]. Interpreting public opinion data is admittedly tricky work. But all things considered, the Bastiat-Mises view does well on both counts.
How popular is the status quo? The General Social Survey, or GSS, is one of the highest-quality and broadest-ranging sources of information on public opinion. It reveals several startling facts about the public's policy preferences.
Start with spending. Over 80% of respondents in 1996 either ‘favored’ or ‘strongly favored’ cuts in government spending, a clear strike against Bastiat and Mises. But making the question slightly more specific reveals that the majority opposes spending cuts on all of the biggest components of the budget, from Social Security and health care to national defense. A majority does intermittently favor cuts in space exploration and welfare. But opposition even to the latter is tenuous; government-funded job training is more than twice as popular as dropping recipients from the rolls and expecting them to find low-skill jobs. The only category of spending that the public invariably wants to cut is foreign aid — which amounts to about 1% of the [US] federal budget! Thus, if you carried out all of the cuts the public is willing to tolerate, the size of government would barely change.
The most plausible reading of this data is that the public wants a free lunch [because they don’t understand how an economy works, how the government will pay for it and what better things could have been done with an alternative – the opportunity cost – the unseen and unimagined rather than just the seen and imagined]. They hope to spend less on government without touching any of its main functions [as presently assumed]. If forced to face a realistic trade-off, though, they abandon anti-government rhetoric. Thus, when asked ‘If the government had a choice between reducing taxes or spending more on social programs like health care, social security, and unemployment benefits, which do you think it should do?,’ the split was roughly 40/60 in favor of more spending. In all probability, adding the status quo as a third choice would reveal that the median respondent's first choice is to keep things as they are.
Public opinion on regulation looks much the same. At the most abstract level, the median American favors the status quo, but those who want less regulation consistently outnumber those who want more. During the 1983-7 period, advocates of deregulation had an absolute majority. But even this moderate skepticism about regulation is superficial. Americans who believe that it is ‘government's responsibility to keep prices under control’ predominate more than 2:1. About 80% of Americans think that government should ‘require businesses to provide consumers with the information they need to make informed choices.’ Industrial policy for both high-tech and declining industries enjoys majority support. The median American persistently favors ‘government financing of projects to create new jobs,’ and at least does not oppose French-style ‘work sharing,’ though he does balk at the idea that government ought to ‘provide a job for everyone who wants one.’
Protectionism is similarly popular. Even in what it bills as an era of ‘declining concern’ about foreign competition, the carefully crafted Worldviews 2002 survey finds that ‘only 38% of Americans say they sympathize more with those who want to eliminate tariffs while 50% say they sympathize more with those who think such tariffs are necessary.’ Over 80% of Americans believe that ‘protecting the jobs of American workers’ should be a ‘very important’ goal of U.S. foreign policy.
The only strong piece of contrary evidence is that a large majority of Americans will endorse free trade if it is combined with a government assistance program for displaced workers. But there are good reasons to suspect that this is largely a question-wording effect. The choices were: free trade without assistance, free trade with assistance, and ‘I do not favor free trade.’ Most obviously, the last option should have been split into (no free trade + worker assistance) and (no free trade + no worker assistance). Furthermore, the binary choice between ‘free trade’ and ‘no free trade’ probably masks the public's preference for an intermediate policy. And finally, the alternative to free trade should have a label its proponents accept, like ‘fair trade.’
Are the public's beliefs about economics systematically biased? To answer this question, we need to know more than just what the public believes; we also need a benchmark for accurate beliefs to which the public's can be compared. The Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy, or SAEE—a wide-ranging comparative study of 1510 non-economists and 250 economists—fits the bill.
Systematic belief differences between economists and the general public appear for 33 out of 37 questions. Many of the belief gaps are enormous, and few would surprise Bastiat or Mises. The public is far more pessimistic about international trade than economists. A majority of the public, for instance, sees ‘jobs going overseas’ as a ‘major’ problem for the U.S. economy, while a majority of economists deny that this is a problem at all. Unlike economists, few non-economists even begin to grasp the possibility that downsizing could be economically beneficial. Only 26% of the general public buys the supply-and-demand explanation for the 1996 rise in the price of gas, versus 89% of economists.
Out of all the sophisms Bastiat ridicules, the crudest is ‘Sisyphism,’ (named after the mythological character condemned to eternal, fruitless toil in Hades) the idea that greater productivity causes poverty by increasingly unemployment. ‘People will perhaps think I am exaggerating,’ remarks Bastiat, ‘and that there are no real Sisyphists.’ But modern evidence is on his side. The SAEE exposes a sizable majority of Americans—but very few economists—as Sisyphists. Most non-economists worry about ‘technology displacing workers.’ Almost no economists agree. You might think that this divide reflects economists' longer time horizon, but the typical member of the public doubts that today's ‘new technology, competition from foreign countries, and downsizing’ will pay off even twenty years from now!
This analysis admittedly takes economists' expertise for granted. The skeptic could interject: Perhaps the public is right and economists are wrong. Unlike mathematicians or physicists, economists' objectivity has often been impugned [suggested that they cannot be trusted, relied on, or respected]. Many critics accuse economists of self-serving bias, an insensitive ‘What's good for me is good for the world’ outlook. Others paint them as dogmatic conservative ideologues.
A particularly helpful feature of the SAEE it contains data on respondents' income, job security, party identification, and much more. This enables us test for the presence of self-serving or ideological bias. It turns out that both of these alternative hypotheses fall flat. Non-economists across the income distribution tend to agree with each other and disagree with economists; controlling for self-serving bias reduces the typical belief gap by less than 20%. There is even less evidence for ideological bias; if anything, statistically adjusting for respondents' political slant makes belief gaps a little bigger. Yes, there is a hint of truth in economists' ultra-conservative image: Economists do believe that supply-and-demand governs prices, that downsizing is good, and executives are not over-paid. But that is only half the story: Economists also embrace a number of ‘far left’ views. For example, liberals are unusually optimistic about the effects of immigration and increased female labor force participation, and economists agree on both counts.
Needless to say, Bastiat and Mises are not the last word on political economy. There is still much to learn. Perhaps the greatest puzzle Bastiat and Mises highlight is: Why isn't economic policy a lot worse? For example, how did tariffs fall to their currently low level? Why doesn't the United States have European-style labor market regulation? Questions like these are hard to answer. But without Bastiat or Mises, few would think to ask.
Overall, one cannot help but be impressed by how far-sighted these two economists were. Who would guess from reading the newspaper or talking politics over Thanksgiving dinner that there would be such a tight correspondence between public policy and public opinion? And who would imagine that economic misconceptions would be so stable over time and place?
After all, Bastiat [1801 - 1850, French economist, legislator, and writer who championed private property, free markets, and limited government] was primarily familiar with mid-19th-century France, and Mises [1881 – 1973, an Austrian-American economist, historian, philosopher, author, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern free-market libertarian movement and the Austrian School of economics] was almost 60 years old when he emigrated to the United States. Yet their analysis of economic misconceptions fits the facts here and now. Their views on democracy's responsiveness to public opinion are similarly prescient. Mises did not predict the worldwide shift in the direction of free-market policies, but he strikingly enunciated the necessary and sufficient condition for it to happen:
‘[I]f a revolution in public opinion could once more give capitalism free rein, the world will be able gradually to raise itself from the condition into which the policies of the combined anti-capitalist factions have plunged it.’
The Bastiat-Mises view of democracy is often accused of being ‘pessimistic.’ This is not only irrelevant; it is false. If special interests are in the driver's seat of democracy, then economic education is in vain. Even if every voter understood economics perfectly, inefficient policy would endure. The Bastiat-Mises view, in contrast, makes economic education the key to a better world. Indeed, the topic inspires both men to wax poetic. Bastiat eloquently calls all economically literate people to this vital task:
‘To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive it. To deceive it is to persuade it that it is being robbed for its own benefit, and to induce it to accept, in exchange for its property, services that are fictitious or often even worse. This is the purpose of sophistry, whether it be theocratic, economic, political, or monetary. Thus, even since brute force has been held in check, the sophism has been not merely a species of evil, but the very essence of evil. It must, in its turn, be held in check. And to this end, the public must be made more subtle than the subtle, just as it has already become stronger than the strong.’
Mises goes even further, putting the weight of civilization itself on economic education:
‘The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built... [I]f [men and women] fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.’
Thus, if Bastiat and Mises are right about how politics works, not only is economic education important. More profoundly, until the friends of economic literacy understand their role in the world, they will be unable to give their best performance." - Bryan Caplan
He is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He published a book on this in 2007 called, 'The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies' It...'Forces the reader to take a second look at our nation's unshakable faith in the wisdom of the electorate.' [and crowds] - Pio Szamel, Harvard Political Review. Another good book about Public Choice Theory is 'The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls' by David W. Moore, which shows that even small groups as used in polling can have serious flaws, that should invalidate their use by political parties for policy development, among other things.
Part1 - Published November 3, 2003. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2003/CaplanMises.html ] Part 2 – Published December 1, 2003. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2003/CaplanBastiat.html ] Both downloaded 19th June, 2011.
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| [Quote No.36418] Need Area: Friends > General
"When you help society, you help yourself too." - Bob Hawke
Former Labor Prime Minister of Australia
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"'Henry V' is the last of four plays of Shakespeare's second tetralogy, which chronicle Henry IV's deposition of Richard II and the civil wars that plagued his reign as a result in part of his shaky title to the English crown. On his deathbed, Henry IV told his son and heir to the throne that the incessant civil strife in his reign had prevented him from carrying out his intention to lead an army of his countrymen to the Holy Land in order to avoid that very turmoil. He desired such a 'crusade,' he told his son, [as a distraction for his own people] 'Lest rest and lying still might make them look, Too near unto my state.' He advised the future king 'to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels, that action hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days.' (Henry IV, Part II, IV..v.208-216). [Immediately upon mounting the throne, Hal – now King Henry V – embarks upon imperial conquest. And he does this on a pretext. High church officials supply him with enormous amounts of money. And provide him with a phony justification for invading another country. War is kicked off on that pretext alone, and the savagery of war begins. Although fiction the use of wars as ways to distract an unruly nation from their own domestic problems with the government and the use of pretexts to start those and other wars are very common throughout history, right up to the present day. Once the war is started the government and media start the intense propaganda campaign to mould and win the 'hearts and minds' of the frightened or baying for blood general public, so that the expense or rationale cannot be questioned or if they are then the questioner is labelled as unpatriotic or worse.]" - greatbooksandfilm.com
[http://www.greatbooksandfilm.com/henryv.htm ]
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"[Crony capitalism, 'kleptocracy,' is more common than most people in supposedly free market economies would believe. Thinking wistfully, we assume that government wants to do good, and its failure to do so is a matter of incompetence.
But if the government is a predator, then it will fail: not merely politically, but in every substantial way... not because it is incompetent but because it is willfully indifferent to the problem of competence.
In the following quote regarding this, the author's opinion is that free markets and competition is now the dominant view of how an economic system ought to function in the United States, but]. . .the doctrine serves as a kind of legitimation myth - something to be repeated to schoolchildren but hardly taken seriously by those on the inside. [including politicians, bureaucrats, regulators, lobbyists, big businesses and even unions, who, in this 'predatory state' conspire in]... the systematic abuse of public institutions for private profit or, equivalently, the systematic undermining of public protections for the benefit of private clients." - James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith teaches economics at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. He is the son of the famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith. His father was an important figure in economics who wrote a number of books including 'The New Industrial State'. This quote comes from James's 2008 book, 'The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too', page xi. [He considers Republican and Democratic economic policies but leaves out the third largest US political party, the Libertarians, which also address his concerns with their policies while still preserving individual and economic freedom.]
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"...[small] limited government, free market, private property and sound money - ensures liberty and prosperity." - Ron Paul
U.S. [Republican, Texas] Member of Congress. Quoted from the US government report, 'The Case For Gold: A Minority Report of the United State Gold Commission', 1st July, 1982. The report was subsequently published as a book under the same title.
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"Wise people, though all laws were abolished, would lead the same life." - Aristophanes
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"A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
" - Voltaire
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"I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to [free speech so you can express yourself and] say it.
" - Voltaire
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"Here I discovered the secret Causes of many great Events that have surprized the World, how a Whore can Govern the Back-stairs, the Back-stairs a Council, and the Council a Senate." - Jonathan Swift
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"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. [So never allow some one or thing to make you do something you do not approve of.]" - Mark Twain
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