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Edmund S. Phelps Quotes

Total quotes: 7
“Economics provides the means to vet an ideological agenda to determine its full range of consequences.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Economics, Effect Testing
“There is no success without the prospect of failure, no adventure without possible mishap.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Part and Parcel, Yin And Yang
“Innovation makes scarce goods abundant.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Innovation, Sharing What Is Rare
“Where there is creativity, there must also be judgment—the judgment that comes from insight and experience. Only where there is both creativity and judgment will there be true innovations—new things that prove to work well, that have some staying power and make a mark.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Creativity, Discretion
“There’s something revealing in the fact that European society has birthrates so low. It suggests that Europe lacks a sense of opportunity for a rewarding, challenging, fulfilling life. Emigration is another sign. You can see the stultifying economy on the faces of young people in Europe, many of whom would dearly like to get out—to Silicon Valley or Shanghai or Singapore. The system on the continent fails to provide the opportunity for rewarding lives.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Communitarian-Corporatist Systems vs. Capitalism, Western Europe, America, Innovative Societies, emigration, Communism Vs. Capitalism
“Economists have long tried to explain to the public that capitalism produces more engagement, exhilaration, and fulfillment than any alternative has done by far. The large fortunes made along the way are a pleasant byproduct and an inducement when our energies flag. But we economists also have to say, to those who are always trumpeting free markets, that there is no magic in the market. It’s a highly fallible system capable of breakdowns. Both the unreasoning rejection of capitalism by some and the baseless triumphalism of others are ridiculous. They are not grounded in a full look at the upsides and the downsides of the system over the past 200 years.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Neutrality In Terms of Economic Configurations, Capitalism
“I personally hold that the classical spirit of challenge and self-discovery is a fundamental human trait. By showing how the risk-taking activity of individuals contributes to social benefits, economics helps societies to accommodate what Augustine called our ‘restlessness of heart.’ This is the better part of our human nature. Societies that suppress this restlessness stagnate and die. The issue of morality in economics is neither the fairness of income distribution nor the stability of financial systems. It is how human institutions can be shaped to correspond to human nature—to man’s nature as an innovator.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, Economic Justice and the Spirit of Innovation | Edmund Phelps
Tagged: Innovation, Human Nature, Cultural Infrastructure, Ways To Motivate Societies
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