's Quotes

"But the solution of these problems must be brought about under state leadership, and cannot be left to unregulated individual actions, which have a disturbing influence on the national economy, and which have therefore been repeatedly forbidden by governmental as well as Party agencies."

"What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long."

"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good", The Wealth of Nations

"Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good."

"It was wrong to allow Stalin to shape the European landscape of the 20th century. It would be even more wrong to let him shape the landscape of the 21st century."

"Bureaucratic management is management of affairs which cannot be checked by economic calculation", Bureaucracy (1945)

"In public administration there is no market price for achievements", Bureaucracy (1945)

"In public administration there is no connexion between revenue and expenditure. The public services are spending money only; the insignificant income derived from special sources...is more or less accidental. The revenue derived from customs and taxes is not 'produced' by the administrative apparatus. Its source is the law, not the activities of the customs officers and tax collectors. It is not the merit of a collector of internal revenue that the residents of his district are richer and pay higher taxes than those of another district", Bureaucracy (1945)

"Bureaucratic management is management bound to comply with detailed rules and regulations fixed by the authority of a superior body. The task of the bureaucrat is to perform what these rules and regulations order him to do. His discretion to act according to his own best conviction is seriously restricted by them", Bureaucracy (1945)

"What characterizes our time is the expansion of the sphere of government interference with business and with many other items of the citizenry's affairs. And this results in a substitution of bureaucratic management for profit management", Bureaucracy (1945)