Donald Sassoon > Quotes

“Books, after all, do not have the same impact whenever we read them.”
― Donald Sassoon, The Culture of the Europeans: From 1800 to the Present

“Yan Fu was convinced that since ‘the wealth and power of modern Europe are attributed by experts to the science of economics’ and that ‘Economics began with Adam Smith, who developed the great principle … that in serving the greater interest, the interest of both sides must be served’, then China had to learn from Adam Smith.96 The West, explained Yan Fu, exalted dynamism, and assertiveness; its commitment to liberty released the potential of individuals. That’s why the West was rich and powerful. China should turn her back on ‘the way of the Sages’ and the traditionalism that kept her people weak and ignorant.97”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“The fate of ‘laggards’ in history is somewhat curious. They are impinged upon far more by the external world than the so-called pioneers. They are supposed to catch up yet they cannot replicate exactly the action of the pathbreakers, for the latter operate in an environment in which, by definition, they have few or no competitors. If you are on top and no one challenges you, there is no need to try to change anything (though perhaps you should). There is a reason why old elites are conservative. It is one thing to initiate change, as Britain did; it is another to have change thrust upon you. One needs to react. Laggards cannot wait for entrepreneurs to materialize out of nothing. The state must take the lead.”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“the majority of your workers read little but the sporting press, and care for little but betting and sport … You are even getting ready, I see, to feed the children of the poor, and next I suppose you will clothe them as well, winding up by maintaining their parents … you seem bent upon producing a nation of degenerate paupers, not of sturdy men … Your politicians appear ready to promise anything to the working-man, provided it is at somebody else’s expense … You call this democratic government; I call it the rule of the nursery. The children are to govern the wise and far-seeing men – to ruin your State in gratifying their own selfish caprices.”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“The paradox is that the regional association we call today the European Union, which has few of the attributes of a state, is the strongest and closest inter-state association in the world, but it is located in the continent with the greatest degree of political fragmentation.”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“This was also their wish. Their ideal was a situation in which Romania would export wheat, thus providing enough wealth for its upper class to live it up in Western style; the peasantry could be kept docile by being fed with mămăligă”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“Most businessmen are not, contrary to popular belief, ‘natural’ liberals. Their inclination is towards order and peace. They tend to be anxious and feel vulnerable, understandably so since they seldom know what is going to happen next.”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“Far from favouring ‘small government’, the Victorians systematically intervened in all areas of public and private life, and not just in those such as morality that the term ‘Victorian values’ suggests. The extent of Victorian social legislation was impressive”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“Liberals thought that it was possible to modernize agriculture, improve the peasants’ standard of living, diversify the economy, and become a ‘civilized’ state. The conservatives were convinced that Romania was destined to remain an agrarian country for the foreseeable future.”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

“In the absence of a plan for the elimination of the capitalist economy, the financial requirements for sodal reforms had to be provided by the capitalist economy itself. Socialist parties faced an unavoidable paradox: in order to pay for social welfare, it was imperative that the market be made as efficient as possible; to follow 'socialist' policies, it was essential to be pro-capitalist.”
― Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism

“To cement the unity of the nation, Romania did what many new nations do (and go on doing): she expanded the public sector, thus creating jobs for the scions of the ‘native’ middle classes and of the lower nobility. The result was an elephantine bureaucracy, open to corruption and bribery,”
― Donald Sassoon, The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914