William Petty Quotes

There is no real wealth but the labor of man.

The employee is regarded by the employer merely in the light of his value as an operative. His productive capacity alone is taken into account.

Police and firefighters are great, but they don't create wealth. They protect it. That's crucial. Teaching is a wonderful profession. Teachers help educate people to become good citizens so that citizens can then go create wealth. But they don't create the wealth themselves.

There is a real fear around shifting from our existing economic system because people believe it gives us social organisation, a sense of freedom, and the ability to be nice to each other. Growth is seen as a social lubricant that allows us to be socially responsible.

The only distribution of wealth which is the product of labor, which will be honest, will come through a more equal distribution of the productive capacity of men.

Labour is the father and active principle of wealth, as lands are the mother.

Free men engaged in free enterprise build better nations, but free enterprise is not a hunting license.

This country is very good at creating wealth, but not very good at distributing it.

It would be well for those interested to reflect whether there now exists, or ever has existed, a wealthy and civilized community in which one portion did not live on the labor of another.... Remember that labor is the only source of wealth, and how small a portion of it, in all old and civilized countries, even the best governed, is left to those by whose labor wealth is created.

Economic development is a great pacifying force.

States and nations do not build wealth by storing cash in a bank vault. They build wealth by expanding human solutions to human problems in order that more and more of her people — living and yet to be born — are able to enjoy a higher quality of life.

What separates developing countries from developed countries is as much a gap in knowledge as a gap in resources.

We have an obligation to each other to not only push our politicians but to push companies to do right by their workers.

We in America were worried about many problems dealing with economic inequality and political inequality. The Communist Party seemed to be the only political force, both concerned and willing, to take action to stop the threat of fascism abroad and to work for economic and political reform in this country.

I have nothing against wealth; I believe that government has a role to play in creating it by supporting pro-growth policies. However, success comes with responsibility.

Civil rights activists and union activists shared not just common values and objectives but also common enemies.

Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.

I believe that we have a duty to look frankly at the social conditions around us and to work to do what we can to address the specific needs which we find.

There is no 'us' and 'them'; it's an illusion. We are all human beings, and we all have a responsibility to support one another and to discover ways of wresting the power from the very, very few people who control all the cash and all the property.

The privileged classes today are bothered about petrol and diesel prices while the poor can't afford two meals a day. I am a very small person, but I want us to think beyond personal and regional interests.

What is the upside of inequality? I would say that it's a deep pool of properly trained, highly motivated talent that is endeavoring to create innovation that grows our knowledge-based economy.

The normal metric of measuring progress has actually been the rate of growth, OK? It's not a wrong metric, but it's not a full metric.

What needs to be kept in mind is both that capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nothing without our co-operation.

There is no opposition between efficiency and justice; on the contrary, an institution run by those who actually do the work is likely to be more effective than one run by interchangeable exploiters who often lack any specific expertise in what they are supposedly managing.

Human population supplies the labor necessary for the creation of wealth; carbon supplies the matter and energy.