emoji_events Incentives
Motivations and rewards driving behavior
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View Full Quote"Because it's always so attractive to be able to do good at somebody else's expense. That's the real problem of our government. Government is a way by which every individual believes he can live at the expense of everybody else. I'm just repeating what Bastiat said two centuries ago."
View Full Quote"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government."
"Private insurance agencies, competing for clients, face a powerful incentive to minimize conflict and aggression: each unresolved conflict imposes costs on the insurer. A territorial monopoly state, by contrast, profits from insecurity; it can externalize the costs of war and aggression onto its tax-paying subjects."
menu_book The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"We tax speeders on the highways to get them to stop speeding. We tax cigarettes to get people to stop smoking. Why then do we tax people who earn income? Why do we tax people who employ other people? Why do we tax companies that make wonderful products at low cost and make lots of profits? Don't for a moment think that the same consequences don't befall taxes on income, employment, and profits as they do on speeders and on smokers."
View Full Quote"If you tax people who work, and you pay people who don't work, do not be surprised if you have a lot of people not working."
"Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we'd better start slaughtering one another, because there isn't any right at all in the world!"
menu_book Atlas Shrugged
View Full Quote"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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Predatory Value Extraction
William Lazonick's book-length case (co-authored with Jang-Sup Shin, Oxford University Press, 2019) against the 'maximizing shareholder value' ideo...
Read Morepsychology Concepts
Four Ways to Spend Money
Milton Friedman's framework describing four ways money can be spent, each with different incenti...
Learn MoreFinancialization (Downsize-and-Distribute)
A term for the shift in large-company management from a 'retain-and-reinvest' model, where profits are kept in the firm and reinvested in R&D, capa...
Learn MoreLaffer Curve
The Laffer Curve is an economic model illustrating the relationship between tax rates and the total tax revenue collected by governments. It shows ...
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