Economic systems work better when there's an extreme reliability ethos. And the traditional way to get a reliability ethos, at least in past generations in America, was through religion. The religions instilled guilt. ... And this guilt, derived from religion, has been a huge driver of a reliability ethos, which has been very helpful to economic outcomes for man.
Charlie MungerPractically everybody (1) overweighs the stuff that can be numbered, because it yields to the statistical techniques theyโre taught in academia, and (2) doesnโt mix in the hard-to-measure stuff that may be more important. That is a mistake Iโve tried all my life to avoid, and I have no regrets for having done that.
Charlie MungerOver the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company's owners are slim at best.
Charlie MungerPeople like the robber barons assumed that the doctrine of the survival of the fittest authenticated them as deserving power. You know, "I'm the richest. Therefore, I'm the best. God's in his heaven, etc." And that reaction of the robber barons was so irritating to people that it made it unfashionable to think of an economy as an ecosystem. But the truth is that it is a lot like an ecosystem. And you get many of the same results.
Charlie Munger