Posts in Economics
Words Worth Noting - September 22, 2022

“There is no law of geography which dictates that it would be impossible for all the inhabitable areas of the earth to lie in latitudes, and be subject to physical conditions, of the type that produced the Asian empires…. Indeed, how can any ‘rigorous’ theory account for Britain’s being an island, a fact that has certainly contributed most importantly to the world’s social and political development. Its insulation was the merest accident on any rational time scale, dating from some ten thousand years ago, a geological instant.”

Robert Conquest in Reflections on a Ravaged Century, critiquing the narrowness of Marx’s development theory.

Words Worth Noting - September 15, 2022

“there is little reason to believe that this socialism [that he saw coming in Britain and the U.S.] will mean the advent of the civilization of which orthodox socialists dream. It is much more likely to present fascist features. That would be a strange answer to Marx’s prayer. But history sometimes indulges in jokes of questionable taste.”

Joseph Schumpeter Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

Words Worth Noting - September 14, 2022

“Job explosion stuns analysts/ The economy’s job-generating power – more than 100,000 new jobs last month – has stunned analysts, and even though they agree it can’t last, they cheered the unexpected surge in employment.”

Headline and first sentence in news story in Ottawa Citizen Dec. 5, 1998