I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
The true law of economics is chance, and we learned people arbitrarily seize on a few moments and establish them as laws.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Economic laws are often based on arbitrary events rather than fixed principles.
In this quote, Karl Marx highlights that what is often considered the 'laws' of economics are merely conclusions drawn from random occurrences rather than universally applicable truths. He argues that learned individuals selectively elevate certain moments of chance into established rules, reflecting a deeper critique of how economic theory can be misrepresented or oversimplified.
Themes
EconomicsLawsChanceArbitraryPrinciples
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the unpredictability of markets, one might quote Marx to emphasize that economic outcomes are often coincidental.
More from Karl Marx
All quotes βReligion is the opiate of the people.
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It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
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Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
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To be radical is to grasp things by the root.
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Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
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