Category: Thought

“Progress is in inverse ratio to the coercive interference of man with man, and in direct ratio to the control by man of external nature.”

“If you try to lessen or restrict competition for your private benefit, you are not denying the truth of an economic law; you are only trying to turn it to your own advantage.”

“The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor.”

Leo Tolstoy, What Is To Be Done? (1886) Chap. XXXVIII, as translated in The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï (1902) edited by Nathan Haskell Dole, p. 259

“It is not the astronomer’s business to consider whether it would be better if the sun were nearer or farther from the earth, or if he turned round her, instead of turning round him. Nor is it the chemist’s business to consider whether carbonic acid and carbonic oxide are noxious gases that ought not to exist. It has never been thought desirable to make Newton responsible for tiles falling on the people’s heads.

“Economists, however, are held answerable for the laws which they discover.”

“I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.”

“If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were free market institutions they could not have gotten away with their risky financial practices because no one would have bought their securities without the implicit assumption that the politicians would bail them out.

“It would be better if no such government-supported enterprises had been created in the first place and mortgages were in fact left to the free market. This bailout creates the expectation of future bailouts.

“Phasing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would make much more sense than letting politicians play politics with them again, with the risk and expense being again loaded onto the taxpayers.”

Thomas Sowell, “Bailout Politics,” September 30, 2008

I left Washington fully expecting to read the following story someday in one of our morning newspapers. Three scientists named Galileo, Newton, and Einstein have concluded that the earth is round. However, the New York Times has learned authoritatively that Professor John Doe of Podunk College has conclusive evidence that the earth is flat.

Professor John George Kemeny, as quoted in Dixy Lee Ray and Lou Guzzo, Trashing the Planet, 1990.

“We should be very jealous of who speaks for science, particularly in our age of rapidly expanding technology. A misinformed or uninformed public can stop anything even when it is clearly in society’s benefit. How can the public be educated? I do not know the specifics, but of this I am certain: The public will remain uninformed and uneducated in science until the media professionals decide otherwise, until they stop quoting charlatans and quacks, and until respected scientists speak up.”

Dixy Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, 1990

“Repeatedly over the past few years the American public has been subjected to a litany of catastrophes — to predictions of impending disaster that are claimed to be unique to modern civilization. The oceans are dying, the atmosphere is poisoned, the earth itself is losing its capacity to support life. . . . The anticipated catastrophes are our own fault, of course, blamed on the greedy and perfidious nature of modern man.

“Well, it’s all pretty heady stuff, but is it true? As with so many issues that involve technology, the answer is yes — and no — probably rather more ‘no’ than ‘yes.’”

Dixy Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, 1990

“Who speaks for science? Or, to put it another way, on whom does the press rely to speak for science?”

Dixy Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, 1990