John Wilson Quotes
Prices have stayed up because people in control of supply decided they could keep them up.
Manava Dharma Shastra. Ancient Hindu India had what may well have been the most regulated mercantile economy of any society in history. All prices for all goods were to be set by the king. In order to prevent the stultifying effect of price controls, the Hindus required that the prices be reset very frequently to reflect various market conditions. It was a highly regulated form of capitalism. This text is a part of the Hindu Holy Texts. Hindus believe that Manu was a prophet whose text is revealed or inspired.
Collection of Spoken Words of the Prophet. Ironically, despite the reverence with which words of the Hadith are accorded in Islam, from time to time Muslim theologians and authorities have attempted to establish “fair prices” despite this free market view of the Prophet.
Few politicians ever admit publicly to this truism, but all in private tend to agree, Inflation is complex and it takes a number of factors to control it.
This is an interesting quotation because it shows that utilities and monopolies using their power and money to avoid effective pro consumer regulation is nothing new and was ongoing as soon as there were government granted monopolies that were supposed to be regulated.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. Bribery of Congress and other legislatures was very common at that time. In modern times, bribery has become less common, with the function being assumed by campaign contributions. Relative to the cost of living, these “prices” in the modern era are far greater than the bribery prices of the 19th Century.
Hoover was the Food Administrator at that time. Although he gave lip service to the free market economy concept, he was proposing government price controls and rationing. When the free market was not functioning, at this time in his career, he was willing to use government controls and regulation. By the end of 1918 over 250,000 food-handling corporations, firms, and individuals were under Food Administration licenses. Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, butter, milk, potatoes, fresh and dried vegetables, and fruits, canned goods, the coarse grains and rice, vegetable oils, coffee, and such various commodities accessory to food-handling, as ice, ammonia (for ice-making), arsenic (for insecticides), jute bags, sisal, etc., were under direct control. Ironically, later when he was President and faced with the Great Depression, he had become much more rigid and would not “interfere” with the free, private market and use government to solve the national problems. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who did that after Hoover would not. At the time he gave this speech, Hoover was not very political and was more of a technocrat. It may have been that by the time he became President he was intellectually and politically locked in to Republican Party conservative economic ideology.
John Wilson of Elleray FRSE was a Scottish advocate, literary critic and author, the writer most frequently identified with the pseudonym Christopher North of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
