David Lewis Quotes

The market economy does not automatically guarantee growth, social justice, or even economic efficiency; achieving those ends requires that government play an important role.

Expenses are nationalized; profits are privatized.

There's no conflict between the social-welfare state and open markets.

The economy is the creation of the personal initiative of private citizens….Public authorities also must play an active role in promoting increased productivity with a view to social progress and the welfare of all citizens.

Corporate welfare bums.

The way to get elected was to keep the market economy humming while cushioning people against its inevitable risks through ever more lavish social programs.

I have never been governed by polls … people misunderstand economic development.

The army did more to shape the pattern and direction of economic development than did any other federal agency, any state government, or any private agency.

Everyone has an interest in the economy: in how it functions, how well it functions, and in whose interests it functions.

Capitalism’s intrinsic dynamism, however, produces insecurity along with benefits and so its advance has always met resistance…. It was only the creation of the modern welfare state in the middle of the 20th century that finally enabled capitalism and democracy to coexist in relative harmony.

Economics and politics are so intertwined and interlinked that politics now, mainstream politics, extreme center politics, are little else but a version of concentrated economics. And this means that any alternative - alternative capitalism, left Keynesianism, intervention by the state to help the poor, rolling back the privatizations - becomes a huge issue. The entire weight of the extreme center and its media is turned against it, which in reality now is beginning to harm democracy.

It's the economy, stupid.

History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.

Romney is right that the Obama vision is too centered on government. But his is too centered on the promotion of business and wealth creation at the expense of everything else.

We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, which will not through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs.

You cannot solve the economy in this country by creating government jobs.

... a better government: more complete security of property; moderate taxes; a more permanent ... tenure of land ... the introduction of foreign arts ... and the introduction of foreign capital, which renders the increase of production no longer exclusively on the thrift or providence of the inhabitants themselves.

Some policies may promote growth in ways that will increase poverty; others may promote growth in ways that will reduce it. Some growth strategies may be good for the environment; others may not be.

Government has a perfect right, indeed a duty, to intervene in the economy in the name of justice, ecology, strategic interests, full employment, or other public goods in which the market has and can have no interest.

The agencies of production, of manufacture, distribution, and of finance: all the parts of the capitalist system, have only one purpose and that is to work for the welfare of the people. And when any of those instruments in any way fails, it is the plain duty of a government which represents the people to remove the cause of the failure.

The party cannot relinquish its leading role in the economy.

The idea of privatization is nutty .... What do you think has been the predominant system here for the past century. How do they think we got into this mess to begin with. There is nothing more inefficient and corrupt in Honduras than private enterprise.

There are a lot of people who say they believe in free enterprise but what they really mean is government-funded free enterprise.

I have always opposed subsidies to private corporations.

To encourage commerce and manufactures by every possible means, should, therefore, be the great aim of the legislator; and every enactment and regulation of his conducing to this effect.