Samuel Bowles: Economics

Samuel Bowles is American economist. Explore interesting quotes on economics.
Samuel Bowles: 20   quotes 0   likes

“The first dimension is called "competition," and it refers to that aspect of an economic system in which exchanges of one sort or another play the most important part. In capitalism, of course, competition and exchange occur primarily in markets.”

Samuel Bowles

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 54

Parting

“The third dimension of three-dimensional economics, change, suggests that studying economics also means studying history. The process of change in society cannot be understood without considering the past and how it changed, eventually becoming the present. Change in political economy may be contrasted with the static approach of conventional economics that freezes time at a moment.”

Samuel Bowles

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 57

History , Study , Change , Time

“The second dimension is called "command," and it refers to those aspects of economic relationships that involve power, coercion, hierarchy, subordination, or authority. In capitalist (and many other) societies, command is a central aspect of the workplace, the household, and the government. It concerns relations among nations, classes, races, men, women, and other groups in society as well.”

Samuel Bowles

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 54

Women , Men

“Keynes was no revolutionary, but his ideas revolutionized 20th-century economics.”

Samuel Bowles

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p.82

Idea

“Endangered liberal values would stand a better chance in a society committed to defending the weak and vulnerable, as did the early liberals, and to insuring people against the economic insecurities that inevitably accompany a technologically dynamic and cosmopolitan economy.”

Samuel Bowles

"The end of liberalism", Boston Globe (June 20, 2017)

People , Chance

“Writers after Coase have referred to the authority structure of the firm as a "visible hand" that works in combination with Smith's invisible hand. The everyday fact that employers exercise power over their employees — not news to most employees — had been a central theme in Marx's economics, but it was (and generally continues to be) overlooked by most neoclassical economists. Early in his studies Coase noted the similarity between the hierarchical organization of capitalist firms, with their reliance on command relations, and the then-existing system of centralized economic planning in the Communist countries, where production was carried out in accordance with orders from higher authorities and where market competition played little role.”

Samuel Bowles

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 85

Exercises , Study , Country