“Voltaire remarked that it is possible to kill a flock of sheep by witchcraft if you give them plenty of arsenic at the same time. The sheep, in this figure, may well stand for the complacent apologists of capitalism; Marx's penetrating insight and bitter hatred of oppression supply the arsenic, while the labour theory of value provides the incantations.”

—  Joan Robinson , book An Essay on Marxian Economics

Source: An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966), Chapter III, The Labour Theory Of Value, p. 22

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Voltaire remarked that it is possible to kill a flock of sheep by witchcraft if you give them plenty of arsenic at the …" by Joan Robinson?
Joan Robinson photo
Joan Robinson 46
English economist 1903–1983

Related quotes

Albert Einstein photo

“In order to be a perfect member of a flock of sheep, one has to be, foremost, a sheep.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muß man vor allem ein Schaf sein.
The New Quotable Einstein
variant translation from Ideas and Opinions: "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

“The physiocrats started a train of thought which was a powerful stimulus to the development of a labour theory of value and surplus value. They did not, however develop such a theory of value themselves. What attention they gave to the problem of exchange-value and price produced results of an altogether different character. Thus while one of their contributions finds its continuation in Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, the other leads to the post-classical supply and demand and utility theories of value.”

Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) British economist

Source: A History of Economic Thought (1939), Chapter III, The Founders Of Political Economy, p. 135

John Wyndham photo

“You can't drive a flock of sheep to market in a dead straight line, but there are ways of getting 'em there.”

John Wyndham book The Day of the Triffids

The Day of the Triffids (1951), ch 10 - p.179

Max Beerbohm photo

“You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a whole flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilization. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost —- he becomes a unit in unreason.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

From a speech given at the Royal Academy of Art in 1953; quoted in Time magazine (11 May 1954).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Willard van Orman Quine photo

“Set theory in sheep's clothing.”

Willard van Orman Quine (1908–2000) American philosopher and logician

Referring to Second-order logic, in Philosophy of Logic (1970)
1970s

Joan Robinson photo

“In general, the nightmare quality of Marx's thought gives it, in this bedevilled age, an air of greater reality than the gentle complacency of the orthodox academics. Yet he, at the same time, is more encouraging than they, for he releases hope as well as terror from Pandora's box, while they preach only the gloomy doctrine that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”

Joan Robinson book An Essay on Marxian Economics

Source: An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 4-5

Karl Marx photo

“The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labour creates value.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

(1857/58)
Source: Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 463.

Related topics