The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
Interpretation
Economic and political ideas shape the world significantly, regardless of their accuracy.
John Maynard Keynes highlights the profound impact that the thoughts and theories of economists and political thinkers have on society. He argues that these ideas, regardless of their correctness, wield a power over global affairs that is often underestimated, suggesting that they play a vital role in shaping policies, governments, and ultimately, the lives of individuals around the world.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of economic theories on global crises.
As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method of investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes.
The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.
We will not have any more crashes in our time.
This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.
The book, as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it beginning with page 45 [Hayek provided historical background up to page 45; after that came his theoretical model], and yet it remains a book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.
If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.
We need to realize that poverty doesn't only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity. We need to love and to be someone for someone else
Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It's the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.
God’s sovereign will is not at the whim and mercy of our person and individual responses to it.
You are the sum total of your dominating or most prominent thoughts.
You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that be must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.
The basic Buddhist stand on the question of equality between the genders is age-old. At the highest tantric levels, at the highest esoteric level, you must respect women: every woman.
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