David Orrell Quotes

26 Sourced Quotes

The entire thrust of neoclassical thought is to argue that the free market economy is an efficient system that will optimize utility for all mankind, if only government will get out of the way. It therefore departs from classical economists such as Adam Smith, who recognized the importance of governments for regulating markets and preventing monopolies.

David Orrell
The economy is a nonlinear fractal system, where the smallest scales are linked to the largest, and the decisions of the central bank are affected by the gut instincts of the people on the street.

David Orrell
It can be annoying to find out the name of a famous local landmark has no significance other than belonging to some distant relation or drinking buddy of the explorer.

David Orrell
Orthodox tools based on a normal distribution therefore fail exactly where they are most needed, at the extremes.

David Orrell
Money, having freed itself from the physical universe, has become number itself, and finance a strange form of mathematical alchemy.

David Orrell
The idea that money begets money, and that the rich and powerful enjoy unfair advantages, goes against what we are taught - or like to believe - about the capitalist system.

David Orrell
Adam Smith's invisible hand does exist, but as an emergent property of a complex system. It has a fuzzy tendency to reduce big price discrepancies, but it acts in a rather haphazard way.

David Orrell
The neoclassical dogma of diminishing returns is completely wrong - success begets success and wealth begets wealth.

David Orrell
The race to the moon was never really about the moon - its utility didn't rest in samples of moon rock. It was about capitalism versus communism, right versus left.

David Orrell
Mathematics was not just about keeping track of were the moon was going, but also where the money was going.

David Orrell
The market can quickly seize up. Prices don't adjust in a smooth continuous fashion, but instead abruptly reconfigure themselves, like the earth's crust during an earthquake.

David Orrell
To balance the economy, we need first to balance our priorities, and abandon rigid ideologies.

David Orrell
Advanced technology is great at tasks such as keeping an airliner flying several thousand feet in the air, but is easily crippled by social complications.

David Orrell
Not only is Homo economicus self-centered, he is a murdering psychopath. However, as with much of neoclassical economic thought, there is an element of circularity here.

David Orrell
There is something intrinsically upside down and counter-intuitive in the relationship between money and happiness.

David Orrell
For even money itself has no value if there is no network of people to recognize it.

David Orrell
If the aim of economics is really to provide the greatest happiness to the most people, than it is rather shocking to discover that economic growth has no net effect on happiness. So what has gone wrong with the neoclassical prospect?

David Orrell
The economy is crooked not straight; and mainstream economists are like flat-earthers who keep saying the world is flat despite all the evidence to the contrary.

David Orrell
To build a genuinely sustainable economy, we need to recognize and embrace the dynamic nature of the world, and free ourselves from the dead holds of static dogma.

David Orrell
The invisible hand is an emergent property of this system, which never reaches an optimal equilibrium, but instead is fundamentally dynamic and unstable, with complex effects on society.

David Orrell
The real reason for the longevity of the neoclassical model have less to do with science, and more to do with the social dynamics of the universities that propagate it, and its appeal to a particular mindset.

David Orrell
It has become increasingly evident, at least among those who aren't currency traders or true believers in the optimality of free markets, that it would be nice if this system could calm down a touch. One option is the Tobin tax, which would impose a tax of around 0.1 percent on currency trades, and act as a kind of damper on speculation.

David Orrell
Perfect order is boring, perfect randomness is boring, but complex systems are interesting.

David Orrell
The strength of capitalism does not lie in the neoclassical idea of stability, but in its ability to unleash this creative energy. like a chaotic mathematical system, it is capable of producing surprise.

David Orrell
A society in which each person is hell bent on maximizing his or her own utility, may therefore have declining overall utility.

David Orrell
Economists often talk about the benefits of choice, but rational economic man doesn't actually have much freedom to chose, because he is a slave to his own preferences.

David Orrell