The Gardens of Democracy Quotes

“While the degree to which human beings pursue that which they think is good for them has not and will probably never change, what they believe is good for them can change and from time to time has, radically.”
― Nick Hanauer, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“And that brings me to my definition of power, which is simply this: the capacity to make others do what you would have them do. It sounds menacing, doesn't it? We don't like to talk about power. We find it scary. We find it somehow evil. We feel uncomfortable naming it. In the culture and mythology of democracy, power resides with the people.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“oo many people are profoundly illiterate in power (TED Talk: Why ordinary people need to understand power). As a result, it’s become ever easier for those who do understand how power operates in civic life to wield a disproportionate influence and fill the void created by the ignorance of the majority.”
― eric liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“The market is the first force that has led to the shriveling of citizenship. The classic case is the Wal-Mart effect. A town has a Main Street of small businesses and mom-and-pop shops. The shopkeepers and their customers have relationships that are not just about economic transactions but are set in a context of family, neighborhood, people, and place. Then Wal-Mart comes to town. It offers lower prices. It offers convenience. Because of its scale and might in the marketplace, it can compensate its workers stingily and drive out competition.   The presence of Wal-Mart leads the townspeople to think of themselves primarily as consumers, and to shed other aspects of their identities, like being neighbors or parishioners or friends. As consumers first, they gravitate to the place with the lowest prices. Wal-Mart thrives. The small businesses struggle and lay off workers. They cut back on their sponsorship of tee ball, their support of the food bank. As the mom-and-pops give way to the big box, and commutes become necessary, lives become more frenetic and stressful. People see each other less often. The sense of mutual obligation that townsfolk once shared starts to evaporate. Microhabits of caring and sociability fall away. In this tableau of libertarian citizenship, market forces triumph and everyone gets better deals—yet everyone is now in many senses poorer.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“the “etiquette of freedom,” to use poet Gary Snyder’s phrase. It encompasses small acts like teaching your children to be honest in their dealings with others. It includes serving on community councils and as soccer coaches. It means leaving a place in better shape than you found it. It means helping others during hard times and being able to ask for help. It means resisting the temptation to call a problem someone else’s.  ”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“we have to be ambitious in our goals, imaginative in our means, ruthless in our evaluations, and aggressive in funding successes and starving failures.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“Government does not spend money; it circulates it. It does not redistribute money; it recirculates it. Social security circulates money back to citizens who contributed to it in the first place, and is then circulated again by them, generating increased economic activity that allows others to be paid, to contribute to social security and then to receive those benefits in the future, in an endless and essential positive feedback loop that sustains and expands our economy. Government circulates money, and the flow, direction, and pace of that circulation are determined by policies our elected leaders choose. The market, of course, is the prime circulator of wealth in an economy. But the public policies of this age of greed have created--by design-- historic distortion in the private economy. That is not circulation; it is clumping and clotting. Recirculation of wealth is as necessary to the economy as recirculation of blood is to the body.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“Money accumulation by the rich is not the same as wealth creation by a society. If we are serious about creating wealth, our focus should not be on taking care of the rich so that their money trickles down; it should be on making sure everyone has a fair chance--in education, health, social capital, access to financial capital-- to create new information and ideas. Innovation arises from a fertile environment that allows individual genius to bloom and that amplifies individual genius, through cooperation, to benefit society. Extreme concentration of wealth kills prosperity in precisely the same way that untended weeds overrun and then kill gardens.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“Public sector leaders, with the counsel and cooperation of private sector experts, can and must choose a game to invest in and then let the evolutionary pressures of market competition determine who wins within that game...effective government entities pick games. They issue grand challenges. They catalyse the formation of markets, and use public capital to leverage private capital. A nation can't "drift" to leadership. Some strong public hand is needed to point the market's hidden hand in a particular direction.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“What I think you think about what I want creates storms of behaviour that change what is.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“we exist today because this is how our ancestors behaved. We evolve today by ensuring that our definition of "our group" is wide enough to take advantage of diversity and narrow enough to be actionable.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government

“we exist today because this is how our ancestors behaved. We evolve today by ensuring that our definition of "our group" os wide enough to take advantage of diversity and narrow enough to be actionable.”
― Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government