“To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object?”

— William Stanley Jevons , book The Coal Question

The Coal Question (1865)
Context: Commerce is but a means to an end, the diffusion of civilization and wealth. To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object?

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William Stanley Jevons 69

English economist and logician 1835–1882

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William Stanley Jevons 69

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