Michael Barone Quotes

Free market economics is not enough .... a free market economy can only function in a cultural and moral environment that supports it

A free enterprise system that is not underlaid with values is bankrupt.

Markets need morals.

I believe in conscientious capitalism; that's a kind of driving force with me.

What Americans should by now be able to see is that neither the laissez-faire marketplace nor strong government has given them a satisfying or permanent resolution. The problem is not the marketplace and it is not government. The problem originates in the contest of clashing values between society and capitalism and, since this human society cannot surrender its deepest values, it must try to alter capitalism's.

A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed choice, about many bad alternatives

The market has no morality

We need to be clear when we venerate entrepreneurs what we are venerating. They are not moral leaders. If they were moral leaders, they wouldn't be great businessmen.

Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies.

I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner. I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good.

Putting people before profits is how we've tried to operate from the beginning.

Markets can do many wonderful things, which is why I'm glad to live in a capitalist country.

You must consider the bottom line, but make it integrity before profits.

Markets are a good thing, and they are the best way of ensuring we have fairness.

A market can be a capitalist or a socialist one, but it is still a market.

Capitalism without Judaism, Christianity, or some other moral basis is just pure greed.

The doctrine of laissez faire is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals.

Capital is good; the capitalist is a helper if he is not also a monopolist. We can safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will not despoil others in doing so.

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

In every generation good men have been perplexed by the paradoxical relation between moral and economic values.

Markets can do certain things, but markets cannot do other things

It's appropriate for people to pursue their profit motive in business. If you want to change that, you're going against human nature. But when it comes to setting the rules or creating the institutions, then you should have the general interest at heart.

… markets don't look after social needs. Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.

A basic contradiction between socialism and the market economy does not exist.

I started out by viewing the marketplace as a cruel place, where you need intervention by government and lawyers to protect people. But after watching the regulators work, I have come to believe that markets are magical and the best protectors of the consumer. It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market.