we make a great fuss about national conscience, but it consists mainly in insisting upon everyone ascribing our national policy to highly moral motives, rather than in examining what our motives really are.

It is much easier to organize control over one industry serving many markets than over one market served by the products of several industries.

Economic theorists should not make such a production about taking a rabbit out of a hat after having put the rabbit into the hat in full view of the audience.

But, as soon as speculators become an important influence in the market, their business is to speculate on each others behaviour.

The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise.

If there is any law governing the distribution of income between classes, it still remains to be discovered.

There is no such thing as a normal period of history. Normality is a fiction of economic textbooks.