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Governments

  1. I will undoubtedly have to seek what is known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) U.S. statesman. Time (December 1952)

 

  1. The business of the Civil Service is the orderly management of decline.

William Armstrong (1915-80) British civil servant. 1973. Quoted in Whitehall (Peter Hennessey; 1990)

 

  1. Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace…On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone…You have no sovereignty where we gather.

John Perry Barlow (b.1947) U.S. academic, lyricist, and writer. “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” (February 8, 1996)

 

  1. It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) British philosopher, economist, and jurist. Principles of Legislation (1789)

 

  1. The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.

William Henry Beveridge (1879-1963) British economist and social reformer. Voluntary Action (1948)

 

  1. An effective antitrust enforcement program promotes innovation by, among other things, reducing barriers to entry. When antitrust enforcement is a reality, potential entrants have less reason to fear market exclusion by existing firms.

Anne K. Bingaman (b.1943) U.S. lawyer. Speech, University of Kansas Law School (September 19, 1996)

 

  1. There is most definitely a role for government in the innovative process. The market does not do everything well.

Anne K. Bingaman (b.1943) U.S. lawyer. Speech, University of Kansas Law School (September 19, 1996)

 

  1. The task of government policy is not to prejudge winners but to make sure that neither private nor public restraints narrow the potential sources of innovation.

Anne K. Bingaman (b.1943) U.S. lawyer. Speech, University of Kansas Law School (September 19, 1996)

 

  1. Where consumer desires are uncertain, and the technology is as yet undeveloped, we should not lose sight of our experience-governments generally do not do well at picking winners and losers from among competing technologies.

Anne K. Bingaman (b.1943) U.S. lawyer. Speech, University of Kansas Law School (September 19, 1996)

 

  1. The public policy questions raised by the growth of the new economy…may turn out to be much more profound than many have yet realized…helping people…is not about protection but empowerment. An economy based on knowledge is one where people are the greatest national resource.

Tony Blair (b.1953) British prime minister. January 2000. Speech, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. Quoted in World Link (March-April 2000)

 

  1. The problem in government with individual civil servants is that when they ask their boss…”What do you want to accomplish,” they’re told, “Just don’t mess things up.” Boy, that covers a lot of ground because things are already messed up.

Kenneth Blanchard (b.1939) U.S. management theorist and author. Ken Blanchard’s Profiles of Success (1996)

 

  1. This is a conflict without battlefields or beachheads, a conflict with opponents who believe they are invisible.

George W. Bush (b.1946) U.S. president. Referring to terrorist attacks on U.S., September 11, 2001. Speech (September 15, 2001)

 

  1. The only good government…is a bad one in a hell of a fright.

Joyce Cary (1888-1957) British writer. The Horse’s Mouth (1944), ch. 32

 

  1. Corruption can undermine government in major industrial countries as well as in developing countries. It destroys the wealth of industry for limited returns to the minority who perpetrate it.

Lynda Chalker (b.1942) British politician. “Public Sector Corruption from an International Perspective.” Speech University of Glasgow, Scotland (February 19, 1999)

 

  1. Governments are facing more and more competition…they are losing power to multinational businesses, commercial organizations, and big media, as well as to small businesses that operate worldwide over the Net.

Esther Dyson (b.1951) U.S. knowledge entrepreneur and government adviser. Speech at the 4th Workshop on Inventing the Organization of the 21st Century, Munich, Germany. “The Future of Truth-The End of the ‘Official Story’” (February 1998)

 

  1. If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.

Gerald Ford (b.1913) U.S. former president. Quoted in If Elected (J. F. Parker; 1960)

 

  1. Despite efforts by government throughout the years to prevent concentration in industry, the regulators are bringing us to the point where only the largest companies can survive.

Henry Ford (1919-87) U.S. automobile manufacturer and C.E.O. of Ford Motor Company. “The High Cost of Regulation,” Newsweek (March 20, 1978)

 

  1. There’s only one place where inflation is made: that’s in Washington.

Milton Friedman (b.1912) U.S. economist and winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics. 1977. Attrib.

 

  1. We sense that our lives are shaped and that government is guided by the modern corporation…In the Age of Uncertainty the corporation is a major source of uncertainty. It leaves men wondering how and by whom and to what end they are ruled.
  2. K. Galbraith (b.1908) U.S. economist and diplomat. The Age of Uncertainty (1977), ch. 9

 

  1. If the government, usually the largest “business” in any country, is a leader in the use of technology, it will automatically lift the country’s technical skills and drive the move to an information market.

Bill Gates (b.1955) U.S. entrepreneur, chairman and C.E.O. of Microsoft. Business@the Speed of Thought (co-written with Collins Hemingway; 1999)

 

  1. Government has an essential role to play in investing in the human resources and infrastructure in the human resources and infrastructure needed to develop an entrepreneurial culture.

Anthony Giddens (b.1938) British sociologist and author. The Third Way: the Renewal of Social Democracy (1998)

 

  1. Business has a clear interest in minimizing government regulation. It is therefore counterproductive for managers to take the position that is something is not illegal it is not immoral.

Damian Grace (b.1950) Australian academic. Australian Problems and Cases (1995)

 

  1. This would, at a stroke, reduce the rise in prices, increase production and reduce unemployment.

Edward Heath (b.1916) British prime minister. Referring to a government policy intended to deal with United Kingdom economic problems. Press release (June 1970)

 

  1. If the mood of the country is for fiscal responsibility then let’s get at that area of government which is the biggest waster of funds-the Defense Dept.

Elizabeth Holtzman (b.1941) U.S. politician. Quoted in American Political Women (E. Stineman; 1980)

 

  1. You cannot extend the mastery of the Government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of people’s souls and thoughts.

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) U.S. president. Presidential campaign speech, New York (October 22, 1928)

 

  1. Laws for the regulation of trade should be most carefully scanned. That which hampers, limits, cripples, and retards must be done away with.

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) U.S. humorist. Notebook (1927)

 

  1. One of the things the government can’t do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.

Lee Iacocca (b.1924) U.S. president of Ford Motor Company, chairman and C.E.O. of Chrysler Corporation. Remark (June 17, 1973)

 

  1. Willingness to accept direction from authorities makes guidance at successive stages of socio-economic and technological development possible.

Erdener Kaynak (b.1947) Turkish business educator and author. Global Business: Asia-Pacific Dimensions (coedited with Kam Hou-Lee; 1989)

 

  1. It is a function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Murray Kempton (1917-97) U.S. journalist. America Comes of Middle Age (1963)

 

  1. With perfect citizens, any government is good.

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) Canadian humorist, essayist, economist and historian. “The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice” (1920)

 

  1. Government has no other end but the preservation of property.

John Locke (1632-1704) English philosopher and political thinker. Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690)

 

  1. Government could do better, it’s not perfect, but I simply want to tell you, if you want to talk about competence, if you want to talk about dedication, it does at least as well as the private sector, and both could do better and both should do better.

Robert S. McNamara (b.1916) U.S. politician and president of the World Bank. Interview, Conservations with History series, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. “A Life in Public Service” (April 16, 1996)

 

  1. Truth is the glue that holds governments together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.

Karl Augustus Menninger (1893-1990) U.S. psychiatrist. Speech, U.S. House of Representatives (1973)

 

  1. My government’s number one priority is poverty reduction and we strongly believe that this can be achieved through an active and vibrant private sector.

Bakili Muluzi (b.1943) Malawian president. Speech, Southern Africa Business Association, London (May 5, 2000)

 

  1. I think the government has an important role to play in the growth of the software industry as long as it becomes a catalyst and not a controlling authority.

Narayan Murthy (b.1946) Indian founder and C.E.O. of Infosys. Quoted in www.rediff.com (2000)

 

  1. It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.
  2. J. O’Rourke (b.1947) U.S. humorist and journalist. Parliament of Whores (1991)

 

  1. Japan took its success for granted. Now it does not really want to face, does not know how to face, the empty charade of subsidy and protection.

Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. Harvard Business Review (May-June 1995)

 

  1. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence..man finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) British politician, philosopher, and writer. Common Sense (1776)

 

  1. I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature…that the more simple anything is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) British politician, philosopher, and writer. Common Sense (1776)

 

  1. The rulers of the state are the only ones who should have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad.

Plato (428?-347? B.C.) Greek  philosopher. The Republic (370? B.C.)

 

  1. Government should be less concerned with economies than with measures necessary for the prosperity of the kingdom…great expenditures may cease to be excessive if they lead to an increase in wealth.

Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) French political economist. General Rules for the Economic Government of an Agricultural Kingdom (1757)

 

  1. The only institution that can mortgage your future without your knowledge or consent: government securities…are promissory notes on future tax receipts, i.e., on your future production.

Ayn Rand (1905-82) U.S. writer. Philosophy: Who Needs It? (1982)

 

  1. One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

Ronald Reagan (b.1911) U.S. former president and actor. Interview (1967)

 

  1. And that, in my view, is what the whole controversy comes down to. Are you entitled to the fruits of your own labor, or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?

Ronald Reagan (b.1911) U.S. former president and actor. Speaking My Mind (1990)

 

  1. The Americans were not put on this earth to become managers of decline.

Ronald Reagan (b.1911) U.S. former president and actor. Speaking My Mind (1990)

 

  1. We’ve polished up the American dream.

Ronald Reagan (b.1911) U.S. former president and actor. Speaking My Mind (1990)

 

  1. Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Ronald Reagan (b.1911) U.S. former president and actor.  December 11, 1972. Speech. Quoted in Speaking My Mind (1989)

 

  1. Financial capital adapts much more easily to changed circumstances than to people. People often have the wrong skills, or no skills…or they’re burdened with costs and responsibilities that make it hard for them to work. Government must be actively involved-helping them over the fence.

Robert Reich (b.1946) U.S. economist and politician. “Under Construction,” World Link (January/February 2000)

 

  1. Cynics about government have much to be cynical about.

Alice M. Rivlin (b.1931) U.S. economist. Reviving the American Dream (1992)

 

  1. Unemployment is a reproach to a democratic government.

Joan Robinson (1903-83) British economist. Quoted in “What has become of the Keynsian Revolution?,” Essays on John Maynard Keynes (milo Keynes, ed.; 1975)

 

  1. Governments can err. Presidents do make mistakes, but…better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) U.S. president. Speech accepting re-nomination for a second presidential term, Philadelphia (June 27, 1936)

 

  1. In a technocratic society political authority is based upon a mystique of scientific expertise. That is what supposedly guarantees the competence of the state and private corporations to keep an intricate industrial economy functioning.

Theodore Roszak (1933-81) U.S. historian, writer, and editor. Person/Plant: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society (1977), Introduction

 

  1. The most powerful force possessed by the individual citizen is her own government. Or governments because a multiplicity of levels means a multiplicity of strengths.

John Ralston Saul (b.1947) Canadian writer. The Unconscious Civilization (1995)

 

  1. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish writer and critic. Everybody’s Political What’s What? (1944)

 

  1. There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

Adam Smith (1723-90) British economist and philosopher. AN Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

 

  1. The advent of a new economy fundamentally changes the stakes involved in the choice of fiscal policy. In a world rich with investment opportunities…the importance of running a surplus and pursuing policies becomes much, much greater.

Lawrence H. Summers (b.1954) U.S. president of Harvard University, economist, and politician. Speech, Washington, D.C. “Making the Right Choices for America’s Long-term Prosperity” (September 19, 2000)

 

  1. The administration (of a nation) must be entrusted to experts. We must not look upon these experts as grand presidents and ministers, but simply as our chauffeurs, as guards at the gate, as cooks, physicians, carpenters, ot tailors.

Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925) Chinese revolutionary leader. The Three Principles of the People (1924)

 

  1. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) U.S. writer. “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849)

 

  1. Government should focus on infrastructure investment, investment in human skills and investment in generating the knowledge that creates new industries. The issue is not government, big or small, but investment versus consumption.

Lester Thurow (b.1938) U.S. economist, management theorist, and writer. Reclaiming Prosperity: A Blueprint for Progressive Economic Reform (1996), Preface.

 

  1. There is an important role for government in future economic success. It has to be the provider of the long-tailed social investments that underlie private economic success in an era of manmade brainpower industries.

Lester Thurow (b.1938) U.S. economist, management theorist, and writer. Reclaiming Prosperity: A Blueprint for Progressive Economic Reform (1996), Preface.

 

  1. You can’t expect a viable economy if the only object of government policy is to be re-elected every four years.

Arnold Weinstock (1924-2002) British managing director of General Electric Company. Independent (London) (December 20, 1986)