Power Quotes

"Economists may not know how to run the economy, but they know how to make trouble if you don't listen to them."

"The curse of all human institutions is that they tend toward centralization of power."

"Government is force and those who are entrusted with the use of force must be constrained by law."

"Bureaucrats are not the servants of the people but the rulers of the people."

"The paradox of government is that it can only enforce rules through coercion."

"Advertising is the most potent influence on human conduct after law and government."

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest."

"Power without ethics is the definition of tyranny."

"The bourgeoisie, in its own interest, creates conditions that inexorably lead to its destruction."

"That most powerful of all economic institutions, competition, is the real regulator of the economy."

"The world is not run by those who make the loudest noise, but by those who control the flow of economic resources."

"The modern economy is characterized by the constant tension between the forces of creation and destruction."

"Social institutions persist not because they are efficient but because they benefit those who control them."

"The leisure class stands at the apex of the social structure."

"Power without wisdom leads inevitably to corruption."

"Power does not belong to those who deserve it, but to those who seize it."

"In every society, a small elite accumulates the majority of resources."

"Power flows to those willing to exercise it, not to those who deserve it."

"Privilege is invisible to those who possess it."

"The survival of the fittest is a good description of what happens in markets without adequate regulation."

"The rate of profit matters more to capitalists than the welfare of humanity."

"Those who control production control society; this is the fundamental lesson of economics."

"The invisible hand often wears a velvet glove concealing an iron fist."

"Interest on debt is the mechanism by which the rich grow richer."

"The distribution of income reflects the distribution of power, not the distribution of talent."

"The corporation is a legal fiction that has become more real and powerful than the nation-state."

"The invisible hand sometimes becomes the invisible iron fist of market concentration."

"The measure of a man is what he does with power."

"Concentrated power is the most dangerous thing in a free society."

"The powerful are not those with the most resources, but those who use resources most creatively."