economic motives Quotes

America has been peopled by Europeans primarily because they expected in that country to make more money more easily.

If you talk to most businessmen, they'll say that what they do is for the public good, but you know they're just greedy, and consumers are just consuming for the sake of their own greed.

Isn’t it the case that foreigners always want money?

No matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles.

Every modern war has had its roots in exploitation.

We're supposed to believe that oil had nothing to do with it, that if Iraq were exporting pickles or jelly and the center of world oil production were in the South Pacific that the United States would've liberated them anyway. It has nothing to do with the oil, what a crass idea. Anyone with their head screwed on knows that that can't be true.

The French had an obvious financial interest in Iraq. That's been documented. They were involved financially in Iraq and in some cases, I think with weapons of mass destruction.

What thrust us into war were not Hitler's political teachings: the cause, this time, was his successful attempt to establish a new economy. The causes of the war were: envy, greed, and fear.

If you white men are desirous of throwing away your lives it is no reasons we Arabs should. We travel little by little to get ivory and slaves and are years about it. But you white men look only for rivers and lakes and mountains, and you spend your lives for no reason and no purpose.

If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money.

The truth is that neither British nor American imperialism was or is idealistic. It has always been driven by economic or strategic interests.

Americans overthrew governments only when economic interests coincided with ideological ones.

Why would these English explorers search for these spices, yet never use them in their food?

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.

Even the predatory wars of the most backward African tribes can be reduced to economic causes.

Malthusian famine scenarios have systematically distracted attention from the fact that it is not people’s reproductive habits that are the principal source of most of the misuse or waste of the world’s resources, but the contradictions and motives of capitalist development.

A nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested.

I don't believe that someone who sets up an institution should be able to take out the money from the institution or pay dividends to shareholders. I am not saying that institutions should be set up for charity.

With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper. In an industrial community this propensity for emulation expresses itself in pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the Western civilized communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to saying that it expresses itself in some form of conspicuous waste.

I'm only interested in Libya if we keep the oil. If we don't keep the oil, I'm not interested.

Why did we leave Afghanistan? It’s because there is no oil in Afghanistan.

With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.

What was the reason for invading Iraq' Was it a humanitarian crusade or an economic one' I would be inclined to say the latter. It was the same with the Civil War, because the landed gentry's money was being stolen by the king.

Marijuana was made illegal because of William Randolph Hearst, the big newspaper guy. He owned thousands of acres of timberland and he didn't want hemp to be used for paper, he wanted to force everyone to buy his trees. And that's why he was the one that spearheaded making it illegal in Washington. Always follow the money, it's done for money purposes.

This going on and on about how terrible a carbon-based economy is, these people are full of crap. They don't know what they're talking about. Their motives are not necessarily good just because they say they are being good. It's peace, love, and understanding. To which I can just say, "Shut up." Human liberty, rule of law, and free markets fix this stuff. It isn't necessary to go around being the Mia Farrow of the ecosphere.