Mark Skousen Quotes

The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation.

They say that open markets are the solution to everything and, if left alone, the invisible hand will solve all problems. Sadly, the reason the invisible hand often appears invisible is that, quite often, it is not there.

I am a believer in Adam Smith, who says that if you look at something that really contributes value to society, and you can deliver it at a reasonable price, then society will recognise that at some point because rational behaviour will come into play.

Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined 'free market' is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

I do think one success of Northern Europe, which the United States came from, was its willingness to accept innovation in business practices like Adam Smith and the whole Enlightenment. It essentially made the merchant class free instead of controlled by the king and aristocracy. That was essential.

During the two centuries since the publication of 'The Wealth of Nations,' the main activity of economists, it seems to me, has been to fill the gaps in Adam Smith's system, to correct his errors and to make his analysis vastly more exact.

I debated free trade in college. I came out as a free trader. I'm a free markets guy. I'm an Adam Smith guy.

We should rely on the markets to move on their own.

Free markets tend to promote democracy.

What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith.

Smith, as we have said, was not the proponent of any one class. He was a slave to his system. His whole economic philosophy stemmed from his unquestioning faith in the ability of the market to guide the system to its point of highest return. The market — that wonderful social machine — would take care of society's needs if it was left alone. "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production," he wrote.

The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.

Capitalism is not an economic system, but a world-outlook, or rather, a part of a whole world-outlook.

Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.

If people can keep track of all the celebrity gossip, there's no reason we can't also assimilate the key concepts of economic philosophy.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Growth theory did not begin with my articles of 1956 and 1957, and it certainly did not end there. Maybe it began with 'The Wealth of Nations'; and probably even Adam Smith had predecessors.

Conservatives may worship Adam Smith's 'invisible hand,' but for Obama, the helping hand comes in large measure from the public, not the private sector. To call this 'socialism' is to do violence to the word and to the concept. To call it 'un-American' is a smear.

The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably means also production for the masses.

It’s hard to be a fan of the free market these days when the free market has just driven the economy over the cliff.

Competition—ruthless, unforgiving, to-the-death competition—is a crucial feature of capitalism.

Capitalism … has existed for fewer than 300 years. If the entire history of Homo sapiens was a 24-hour day, then capitalism has existed for two minutes … Economic systems come, and economic systems go. No economic system lasts forever. Capitalism is not likely to last forever, either.

Capitalism is not simply mass production, but mass production to satisfy the needs of the masses.

A market economy is a tool—a valuable and effective tool—for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values sweep into every aspect of human endeavor. It is a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.

People think the free market is a philosophy, they think that it is a creed. It is none of those things. Free market is a bathroom scale, it is a measuring tape, it's simply a measurement.