“In crafting the Constitution, the Founders emphasized process, not results. If we follow the Constitution, we won’t have a perfect society, which is unattainable by imperfect humans. But we will provide opportunity for people to use their natural rights to pursue the acquisition of property and their personal happiness. The results may yield sharp inequalities of income, but the process will guarantee chances for almost everyone.”
― New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America
― New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America
“The second point is that, in the key industries we have studied, the state failed as an economic developer. It failed first as a subsidizer of industrial growth. Vanderbilt showed this in his triumph over the Edward Collins' fleet and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in the 1850s. James J. Hill showed this forty years later when his privately built Great Northern outdistanced the subsidized Northern Pacific and Union Pacific. The state next failed in the role of an entrepreneur when it tried to build and operate an armor plant in competition with Charles Schwab and Bethlehem Steel. The state also seems to have failed as an active regulator of trade. The evidence in this study is far from conclusive; but we can see problems with the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Sherman Anti-trust Act, both of which were used against the efficient Hill and Rockefeller.”
― The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America
― The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
“You can neither lie to a neighbourhood park, nor reason with it. 'Artist's conceptions' and persuasive renderings can put pictures of life into proposed neighbourhood parks or park malls, and verbal rationalizations can conjure up users who ought to appreciate them, but in real life only diverse surroundings have the practical power of inducing a natural, continuing flow of life and use.”
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
“By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.”
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
John’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at John’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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