Circulation model of economic flows for a closed market economy.

An economic system is a system of production, resource allocation, exchange, and distribution of goods and services in a society or a given geographic area. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes, and patterns of consumption that comprise the economic structure of a given community. As such, an economic system is a type of social system.

CONTENT : A - F , G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes

Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

A - F

  • (Capitalism is) an economic system based on private, rather than state, ownership of businesses, factories, transport services, etc, with free competition and profit-making.
    • Allwords.com: Lemma "Capitalism", 2006.
  • So far we have studies how, for each commodity by itself, the law of demand in connection with the conditions of production of that commodity, determines the price of it and regulates the incomes of its producers. We considered as given and invariable the prices of other commodities and the incomes of other producers; but, in reality the economic system is a whole of which the parts are connected and react on each other. An increase in the incomes of the producers of commodity A will affect the demand for commodities Band C, etc., and the incomes of their producers, and, by its reaction will involve a change in the demand for A. It seems, therefore, as if, for a complete and rigorous solution of the problems relative to some parts of the economic system, it were indispensable to take the entire system into consideration. But this would surpass the powers of mathematical analysis and of our practical methods of calculation, even if the values of all the constants could be assigned to them numerically.
  • The state of an economy is the resultant of real flows and money flows. The financial institutions operating through capital and money markets is institutional infrastructure. It lubricates the wheel of the economic system
  • I should like to suggest to you that the cause of all the economic troubles is that we have an economic system which tries to maintain an equality of value between two things, which it would be better to recognise from the beginning as of unequal value.
  • Today we have access to highly advanced technologies. But our social and economic system has not kept up with our technological capabilities that could easily create a world of abundance, free of servitude and debt. This could be accomplished, if we implement a resource-based economy.

G - L

  • In the infinitely complex economic system on which we rely for our daily bread, no productive function is more important than that of our business leaders. These men are charged with the responsibility of giving direction and unity to the efforts of the many who participate in economic activity. It is their job to make the plans and decisions which will transform economic effort into the particular goods and services wanted by a myriad of consumers. Conversely, it is their job also to translate consumers' needs into employment opportunities for labor and other economic resources
  • We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.
  • The world financial system is a total fraud. It is one gargantuan Ponzi scheme, no better than the one Bernie Madoff used to swindle his friends and neighbors, and thousands of times worse if you add up the total number of victims it has ripped off over countless generations. The principal difference between the two schemes is that Madoff was acting outside the law while the international banking cartel has persuaded generation after generation of monarchs, presidents and prime ministers to provide legislative protection for their larceny.
  • The banks Ponzi scheme is alarmingly simple. They lend the same money to several people or institutions at the same time and collect interest on it from each... Over the years, due to the avarice of the banks and the complicity of the politicians, that ratio has increased dramatically. In the early days of the 20th century, federal chartered U.S. banks were required to keep gold reserves of 25 percent. That means they were allowed to lend the same money four times. I remember when Canadian banks were required to maintain a cash reserve of 8 percent. That means they were allowed to lend the same money 12½ times. Today, thanks to Milton Friedman’s irrational flip-flop from being a proponent of 100% cash reserves to the opposite extreme of zero reserves, and the adoption of his ideas by the major central banks of the world in 1974, multiples have increased dramatically – in some cases to as much as 20 to 1 or more.
  • The collateral damage from the recent meltdown has been staggering. The U.S. Bureau of Labor estimated that 8.4 million jobs were lost in the U.S. alone. Most countries experienced similar dramatic losses. The reduction in asset values worldwide has been estimated at $20 trillion U.S. dollars, yet not a single one of the culprits is in jail. You would think that someone would have had the decency to launch a class action for at least $10 trillion against every individual and every organization that contributed to the catastrophe in any way.
  • We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.
    • Adolf Hitler, In a speech (1 May 1927), as quoted in Adolf Hitler : The Definitive Biography (1976) by John Toland.
  • The British came to India primarily as traders but ultimately succeeded in carving out a strong empire in India. During their rule of over two centuries, they brought about far-reaching changes in the economic system of India. They completely destroyed the isolationist and self-sufficing character of the village;…
  • The Ethics of Competition is a book of Frank H. Knight's writings on a common theme: the problem of social control and its various implications. Knight believed in free economic institutions but was also aware that the competitive economic system could be improved. One of the central figures of neoclassical economics in the twentieth century, Knight pursued a lifelong campaign against irrationalities of nationalism, religious fanaticism, and group conflict, while conceding that these were fundamental orientations of human action that might yet frustrate his own work as an economist. While Knight vigorously defended human freedom and the liberal order, he also was sufficiently moved by the shortcomings of liberalism as to condemn it as rife with abuse.
    • Frank Knight, Richard Boyd. The Ethics of Competition, 1935/2009; Abstract

M - R

  • The economic structure of the ideal society also resembles the structure of a healthy human body. Production, distribution and consumption should have an organic, interdependent relationship such as that which exists between the digestive, circulatory and metabolic systems. There should not be destructive competition due to overproduction; nor should there be excessive accumulation or overconsumption due to unfair distribution, which would be contrary to the welfare of all people. There should be adequate production of necessary and useful goods, fair distribution to supply what is sufficient for people's needs, and reasonable consumption in harmony with the purpose of the whole.
  • Here's what I don't think works: An economic system that was founded in the 16th century and another that was founded in the 19th century. I'm tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century; we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.
  • Capitalism is an organized system to guarantee that greed becomes the primary force of our economic system and allows the few at the top to get very wealthy and has the rest of us riding around thinking we can be that way, too - if we just work hard enough, sell enough Tupperware and Amway products, we can get a pink Cadillac.
  • It's a historical phenomenon that in 250 years, a nation could move from a colony into the most prosperous nation of the world and the leader of the world. It is indeed an achievement, a tribute to the talent of the American nation, the American people and an optimal political and economic system.

S - Z

  • But what I believe is that if a person's individual rights or right to be a part of our economic system is violated under statute, we aggressively go after it. But we don't issue mandates to businesses that you've got to do this and you've got to do that.
  • An economic system is not a linear system, and... this fact stands in the way of the determination of the parameters of the system by methods that presume linearity, and... it introduces great difficulties in the extrapolation from past behaviour for purposes of prediction.
    • Arnold Tustin (1953) The Mechanism of Economic Systems: An approach to the problem of economic stabilisation from the point of view of control system engineering. p. ix.

See also

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