The urge to consume is fathered by the value system which emphasizes the ability of the society to produce.

The years of the Great Depression were a superb time for economists because people not knowing what could be done or what should be done would always assume that maybe an economist had the answer. If you were just a lawyer in Washington, you were nobody. But if you were an economist, you might have the answer.

The ideas by which people . . . interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth.

But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated.

The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.

I've been writing a book called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. I published part of it already in The Progressive ("Free Market Fraud," January 1999). But I've been interrupted these last few months. It deals with all of the things we do, in an innocent way, to cover up the truth.

This is a world inhabited not by people who have to be persuaded to believe but by people who want an excuse to believe.