“Since the industrial revolution, we have been plagued with periodic recessions and depressions, described as the "lows" of the business cycle. It should be made perfectly clear that these recessions, unlike famines, are not Acts of God, but simply attributable to the folly and inflexibility of man.”

— Paul Hellyer

Inflation vs. Unemployment, An Address by the Honourable Paul T. Hellyer, Curran Hall Limited, Toronto, February 20th, 1958

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Paul Hellyer2

engineer, politician, writer 1923–2021

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“Business cycles are a type of fluctuation found in the aggregate activity of nations that organize their work mainly in business enterprises: a cycle consists of expansions occurring at about the same time in many economic activities, followed by similarly general recessions, contractions, and revivals which merge into the expansion phase of the next cycle; this sequence of changes is recurrent but not periodic; in duration business cycles vary from more than one year to ten or twelve years; they are not divisible into shorter cycles of similar character with amplitudes approximating their own.”

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“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. ... [N]or is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained...That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8

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Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Source: The American Business Cycle, 1986, p. 2

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