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

Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.

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

Let’s begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift minimizes - indeed, deletes - the role of wealth in the economic and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going back to Marx. Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces. It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the interest of those to whom money accords power. They have now a functional anonymity.

The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the U.S. is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems.

I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, 'I'm in favor of privatization,' or, 'I'm deeply in favor of public ownership.' I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case.

In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results far much less.