The Leading Indicators Quotes

“The idea that the government—any government—had a responsibility to help support those of able body who couldn’t support themselves was alien. That was charity, and charity was the province of churches or local associations and in no way the responsibility of government.”
― Zachary Karabell, The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World

“For centuries, it wasn’t government that kept the best records; merchants did. They were the ones who refined methods of accounting, bookkeeping, costs, and incomes, and they were at the core of the development of banking and notes of credit that are the precursors to all contemporary finance. Rulers, however, needed and coveted the revenue that merchants generated. Hence the evolution of the mercantile system, which saw various empires attempt to monopolize trade with their far-flung colonies and keep out foreign powers and foreign merchants.”
― Zachary Karabell, The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World

“The notion that a professionally run government could maximize a society’s output and stability through the application of scientific principles had widespread appeal, but almost every country lacked one key element: information. Yes, as we saw, governments had long been keeping track of trade and agriculture—the two traditional sources of wealth and power. But scientific management of society required data, and there, most societies and most governments were largely in the dark. As of the middle of the nineteenth century, almost every metric we now take as a given—from health statistics to economic data—simply did not exist.”
― Zachary Karabell, The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World

“The idea that the government—any government—had a responsibility to help support those of able body who couldn’t support themselves was alien. That was charity, and charity was the province of churches or local associations and in no way the responsibility of government. Yet those attitudes”
― Zachary Karabell, The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World