Barry Gardiner Quotes

It is time that we dispensed with the myth that the market is a force of nature that should not be meddled with. Markets are social creations that can be, and have been, modified for social purposes.

Many markets work best with little or no outside interference. But others - especially those subject to big 'externalities' - need a helping hand.

Just because there is a market failure, doesn’t mean there is a government solution.

We want free markets, but the markets are not going to take care of themselves in all cases.

When markets fail, as they often do, collective action becomes imperative.

My citizen activism is a direct outgrowth of a classical and fiscally conservative training in economics at Harvard. It is a perspective rooted in one of the most important concepts in economics - the need for government intervention in the presence of a market failure.

While admirers of capitalism, we also to a certain extent believe it has limitations that require government intervention in markets to make them work.

Markets that don't work we're going to step away from.

It is right to intervene when markets are not working and people are getting hurt.

I've made it very clear that the government should get out of the business of trying to affect the markets, of trying to pick winners and losers.

My goal is first of all to promote a public debate about where markets serve the public good and where they don't belong. That's my first goal.

In the past six months, our federal government has devised a dozen strategies to save America's financial markets. Each plan has been more costly, more risky, and less aligned with the principles of our country's free market economy than the last. I am disappointed to say that this latest plan puts all the rest of them to shame.

Market design is about understanding the details of markets in sufficient detail so that we can help fix them when they are broken.

You know, I've got experiences going back to the wage price controls in the Nixon administration where, in effect, we had what I think was a terrible mistake, in that case a Republican administration, where moved in and tried to control the wages, prices and profits of every enterprise in America. It was a huge mistake.

I always found the appeal to the market gods a bit odd. Why would the market fix mistakes instead of aggravating them?

Markets don’t always self-correct fast enough. Until they do there is an immense amount of damage that has been done which is why we need government intervention.

I want the market to work if it can, and most of the time it will, but not without some pain.

We want a free market, but we know that the paradox of a 'free' market is that sometimes you have to intervene. You have to make sure it's not the law of the jungle but the laws of democracy that works.

When everything is going well, the role of the state in the economy should be limited. When we are in a crisis, it's different.

There is certainly a role for regulation, but regulation should always take into account the impact that it has on markets, a balance that must be constantly weighed.

Most companies want free enterprise in general because that produces better goods and services and makes people's lives better, but they don't want it in their business. They want protection from competition, they want subsidies, they want the government to pick winners and losers, and they want to be picked as winners, and that's what we're opposing, and that's what drives my whole efforts in policy, and in the political arena.

Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.

There is no such thing as a free market.

When the government makes loans or subsidies to business, what it does is to tax successful private business in order to support unsuccessful private business.

I certainly think the free-market has failed.