“The aim of this book is to try to explain to top management of America that their job is to improve competitive position. One need not be an economist to understand from the papers that many American products are not competitive at home or abroad, lost to foreign invasion, causing unemployment at home. Failure of management to plan for the future and to foresee problems has nurtured waste of manpower, of materials and of machine time, all of which raise the manufacturers costs and the price the purchaser must pay. The consumer is not always willing to subsidize this waste.”

— W. Edwards Deming

Source: Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position, (1982), p. i; Preface

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W. Edwards Deming 33

American professor, author, and consultant 1900–1993

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“Loss of market begets unemployment. Emphasis has been on short-term profit, to the undernourishment of plans that might generate new product and service that would keep the company alive and provide jobs and more jobs. It is no longer socially acceptable performance to lose market and to dump hourly workers on to the heap of unemployed.
The basic sickness of American industry and resulting unemployment is failure of top management to manage. Loss of market, and unemployment, are not foreordained. They are not inevitable. They are not acceptable. The day is past when people in management need not know anything about management by which I mean to include problems of production, supervision, training.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

Source: Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position, (1982), p. i; Preface

“If the economy today were operating close to capacity levels with little unemployment, or if a sudden change in our military requirements should cause a scramble for men and resources, then I would oppose tax reductions as irresponsible and inflationary; and I would not hesitate to recommend a tax increase, if that were necessary. But our resources and manpower are not being fully utilized; the general level of prices has been remarkably stable; and increased competition, both at home and abroad, along with increased productivity will help keep both prices and wages within appropriate limits.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

“In short, competition has to shoulder the responsibility of explaining all the meaningless ideas of the economists, whereas it should rather be the economists who explain competition.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. III, Ch. L, Illusions Created by Competition, p. 866.
Das Kapital (Buch III) (1894)

“There mere idea that the planning authority could ever possess a complete inventory of the amounts and qualities of all the different materials and instruments of production of which the manager of a particular plant will know or be able to find out makes the whole proposal a somewhat comic fiction. Once this is recognised it becomes obvious that what prices ought to be can never be determined without relying on competitive markets.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

“It has always been characteristic of American Industry to change products and methods of doing jobs as often as competitive conditions or engineering progress dictates. This makes frequent changes in an individual's work necessary. In addition, the markedly greater turnover and absenteeism of recent years result in unbalanced production lines which again makes for frequent shifting of individuals from one job to another. One of the most serious production problems faced at the Harwood Manufacturing Corporation has been the resistance of production workers to the necessary changes in methods and jobs. This resistance expressed itself in several ways, such as grievances about the piece rates that went with the new methods, high turnover, very low efficiency, restriction of output, and marked aggression against management. Despite these undesirable effects, it was necessary that changes in methods and jobs continue.”

John R. P. French (1913–1995) American psychologist

Source: "Overcoming resistance to change." 1948, p. 512; Lead paragraph

“Americans who have lost their jobs need our help and I support extending unemployment benefits and direct assistance for health care coverage. Yet, American workers want more than unemployment checks — they want a steady paycheck. When America works, America prospers, so my economic security plan can be summed up in one word: jobs.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

“In this sense the Negro problem is not only America's greatest failure but also America's incomparably great opportunity for the future. If America should follow its own deepest convictions, its well-being at home would be increased directly. At the same time America's prestige and power abroad would rise immensely.”

Gunnar Myrdal book An American Dilemma

Source: An American Dilemma (1944), p. 1021

“Many of today's trading relationships actually make America more globally competitive.... Raising tariffs among the United States, Canada and Mexico will only weaken a well-oiled manufacturing machine that is driven by the high level of integration the three economies have in their supply chains. This integration makes the region as a whole more competitive vis-à-vis the world.”

George Shultz (1920) American economist, statesman, and businessman

A better way than tariffs to improve America's trade picture. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/01/opinions/a-better-way-than-tariffs-to-improve-americas-trade-picture/index.html CNN opinion article written jointly with Pedro Aspe, Mexico's former secretary of finance, published June 1, 2018.

“A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive, independent profit centres, and thus destroy the system.... The secret is cooperation between components toward the aim of the organization. We can not afford the destructive effect of competition.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)

“There is great dignity in work – and in America, if you want to provide for your family, you should be able to find a full-time job that pays a fair wage. The federal jobs guarantee is an idea that demands to be taken seriously. Creating an employment guarantee would give all Americans a shot at a day’s work and, by introducing competition into the labor market, raise wages and improve benefits for all workers.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

In [Salant, Jonathan D., 11 ways Cory Booker is wooing progressives as he eyes a run for president in 2020, https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/08/11_ways_booker_is_wooing_progressives_in_advance_of_1.html, nj.com, 21 August 2018, August 19, 2018]
2018

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