Benji

“Anytime we step outside of the realm of the market economy and
monetary calculation, the social system must attempt to provide a substitute for property, prices, and profit-and-loss to align incentives, guide decisions, lure entrants and innovation, and discipline and select superior methods of production to reveal opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation. Whether or not these substitutes can effectively serve the function that the price system does is the crux of the debate in comparative institutional analysis.”
― Peter Boettke, The Socialist Calculation Debate: Theory, History, and Contemporary Relevance

“He read a lot, but what he read, and not just that but everything he saw, films and paintings, he translated into feeling. And this feeling, which could not immediately be expressed in words, not yet and maybe never, that formless mass of sentiments, impressions, observations — that was his way of thinking. You could circle around it with words, but there always remained far more that was not expressed than was. And later, too, a certain resentment would take possession of him, toward those people who demanded precise answers, or pretended to be able to give them. It was, on the contrary, the very mystery of everything that was so attractive. You should not want to impose too much order on it. If you did, something would be lost irrevocably. That mysteries can become more mysterious if you think about them with precision and method, he did not yet know. He felt at home in his sentimental chaos. To chart it you had to be an adult, but then you were at once labelled, finished, and in effect already a little dead.”
― Cees Nooteboom, Rituals

“Meinungen sind für den Riesenapparat des gesellschaftlichen Lebens, was Öl für Maschinen; man stellt sich nicht vor eine Turbine und übergießt sie mit Maschinenöl. Man spritzt ein wenig davon in verborgene Nieten und Fugen, die man kennen muß.”
― Walter Benjamin, Einbahnstraße / Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert

“Les meubles que vous voyez ici, nous dit notre hôte, sont vivants; tous vont marcher au moindre signe': Minsky fait ce signe, et la table s'avance; elle était dans un coin de la salle, elle vient se placer au milieu; cinq fauteuils se rangent également autour; deux lustres descendent du plafond et planent au milieu de la table! 'Cette méchanisme est simple', dit le géant, en nous faisant observer de près la composition de ces meubles. 'Vous voyez que cette table, ces lustres, ces fauteuils, ne sont composés que de groupes de filles, artistement arrangés; mes plats vont se placer tout chauds sur les reins de ces créatures'.”
― D. A. F. de Sade