Author: Redactor

“The civil state regarded purely as a lawful state, is based on the following a priori principles:

• The freedom of every member of society as a human being.
• The equality of each with all the others as a subject.
• The independence of each member of a commonwealth as a citizen.

“These principles are not so much laws given by an already established state, as laws by which a state can alone be established in accordance with pure rational principles of external human right. ”

Immanuel Kant, Theory and Practice (1791)

Whereas the governments of some low-income countries are improving their economics policies, in the United States the proliferation of political movements that view economics with disdain, along with apparent general public support for government market interventions, are in considerable measure contributing to the decline in the performance of the U.S. economy.

Theodore W. Schultz, Investing in People: The Economics of Population Quality (1981), p. 143-4.

[T]here is an abundance of rhetoric consisting of dire predictions that the soils of the earth are being depleted, natural resources are being exhausted, the land that is suitable for crops cannot produce enough food for the still growing population, and that massive famines will soon occur. These predictions are not a true reckoning of the limits of the earth, because the future productivity of the economy is not foreordained by space, energy, and cropland. It will be determined by the abilities of human beings. It has been so in the past and there are no compelling reasons why it will not be so in the years to come.

Theodore W. Schultz, Investing in People: The Economics of Population Quality (1981), p. 140.

“It does not distract from the economic fundamentals set forth by Adam Smith to point out that the wealth of nations would come to be predominantly the acquired abilities of people — their education, experience, skills, and health. No one at Adam Smith’s time could have foreseen that there would be a nation in which four-fifths of the national income would be derived from earnings and only a fifth of it from property. Yet the United States is such a nation. We have learned that advances in knowledge are an important source of wealth and income. We appear, however, to know less about the functions of organization than Adam Smith knew.”

Theodore W. Schultz, Investing in People: The Economics of Population Quality (1981), p. 140

Duplicate men are not to be found. There is in each a different balance of desires. Therefore the conditions adapted for the highest enjoyment of one, would not perfectly compass the same end for any other. And consequently the notion of happiness must vary with the disposition and character; that is, must vary indefinitely.

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed (London: John Chapman, 1851), Introduction, § 2.

“No-one can compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else within a workable general law — i.e. he must accord to others the same right as he enjoys himself.”

Immanuel Kant, Theory and Practice (1791)