If one could divine the nature of the economic forces in the world, one could foretell the future.

Capitalism is the only society in human history in which neither tradition nor conscious direction supervises the total effort of the community; it is the only society in which the future, the needs for tomorrow, are entirely left to an automatic system.

Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits. Later on, a Henry Ford might introduce an era of intensely production-minded captains of industry, but the Harrimans, Morgans, Fricks, and Rockefellers were far more interested in the exciting manipulation of huge masses of intangible wealth than in the humdrum business of turning out goods.

Economists can be called the worldly philosophers for they sought to embrace in a scheme of philosophy the most worldly of man's activities-his drive for wealth.

Socialism has been a great tragedy this century.

We turn to Marx, therefore, not because he is infallible, but because he is inescapable.

Growth is the mantra of our society because the economy can't remain healthy without growth.Impregnable monopolies aside (and these are few), profits are both the hallmark of capitalism and its Achilles heel, for no business can permanently maintain its prices much above its costs. There is only one way in which profits can be perpetuated; a business-or an entire economy-must grow.