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

Veblen once asked a religious student the value of her church in kegs of beer.

The cure for capitalism's failing would require that a government would have to rise above the interests of one class alone.

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

One accumulates or one gets accumulated.

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.

Smith, as we have said, was not the proponent of any one class. He was a slave to his system. His whole economic philosophy stemmed from his unquestioning faith in the ability of the market to guide the system to its point of highest return. The market — that wonderful social machine — would take care of society's needs if it was left alone. "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production," he wrote.