If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer read more

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer classes have adopted a certain way of living, producers have an incentive to improve the methods of manufacture so that soon it is possible for the poorer classes to follow suit. Thus luxury furthers progress. Innovation "is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. The luxury today is the necessity of tomorrow." Luxury is the roadmaker of progress: it develops latent needs and makes people discontented. In so far as they think consistently, moralists who condemn luxury must recommend the comparatively desireless existence of the wild life roaming in the woods as the ultimate ideal of civilized life.

Economics is not about things and tangible material objects; it is about men, their meanings and actions.

Economics is not about things and tangible material objects; it is about men, their meanings and actions.

...it is solely bigness in business which makes it possible to supply the masses with all those products the present-day read more

...it is solely bigness in business which makes it possible to supply the masses with all those products the present-day American common man does not want to do without. Luxury goods for the few can be produced in small shops. Luxury goods for the many require big business.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.

If patriotism is, as Dr. Johnson used to remark, the last refuge of the scoundrel, wrapping outdated industry in the read more

If patriotism is, as Dr. Johnson used to remark, the last refuge of the scoundrel, wrapping outdated industry in the mantle of national interest is the last refuge of the economically dispossessed. In economic terms, pleading national interest is the declining cottage industry of those who have been bypassed by the global economy.

The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money.

The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money.

All currency is neurotic currency.

All currency is neurotic currency.

American prosperity and American free enterprise are both highly unusual in the world, and we should not overlook the possibility read more

American prosperity and American free enterprise are both highly unusual in the world, and we should not overlook the possibility that the two are connected.