William Rees-Mogg > Quotes

“Sovereign Individuals will no longer merely accede to what is imposed upon them as human resources of the state. Millions will shed the obligations of citizenship to become customers for the useful services governments provide. Indeed, they will create and patronize parallel institutions that will place most of the services associated with citizenship on an entirely commercial basis. For most of the twentieth century, the productive have been treated as assets by the state, in much the way that the dairy farmer treats milk cows. They have been squeezed ever more vigorously. Now the cows will sprout wings.”
― William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age

“Success in business, as in most areas of life, depends upon being able to solve problems. If you can teach yourself how to solve problems, you have a bright career ahead of yourself. No matter where you live, you will find problems galore in need of solving. In most cases, those who would benefit from solutions of their problems will pay you handsomely to effect them.”
― William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age

“Contrary to the romantic jabberings of Marxists and others who have transformed the violent opponents of labor-saving technology in to heroes, they were an unpleasant and violent lot who opposed the introduction of technology that raised living standards worldwide for purely selfish reasons.”
― William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age

“The dynamic of foraging created very different incentives to work than those to which we have become accustomed since the advent of farming. The capital requirements for life as a forager were minimal. A few primitive tools and weapons sufficed. There was no outlet for investment, not even private property in land.
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Having no permanent homes, they had little need to work hard to acquire property or maintain it.
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With no reason to earn and almost no division of labor, the concept of hard work as a virtue must have been foreign to hunting-and-gathering groups.
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There was literally nothing to be gained by working beyond the bare minimum required for survival.”
― William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age