David Orrell > Quotes

“According to neoclassical economics, the economy was a machine for creating what Francis Edgeworth called “the maximum energy of pleasure”. But studies of self-reported life satisfaction showed that the pleasure machine was failing even in rich countries like the US, where happiness peaked some time back in the 1950s or 60s, and had been in slight decline ever since.”
― David Orrell, Introducing Economics: A Graphic Guide

“this backed up the belief that the entire cosmos was based on number: what the Pythagoreans called the Harmony of the Spheres.”
― David Orrell, Introducing Economics: A Graphic Guide

“Smith argued that the most essential thing that holds a society together, apart from a proper legal framework, is commerce. A stable society can exist in which each person is motivated only by “a sense of utility, without any mutual love or affection”.”
― David Orrell, Introducing Economics: A Graphic Guide

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters – pain and pleasure … The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law.”
― David Orrell, Introducing Economics: A Graphic Guide