Robert Heilbroner - Man Quotes

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In the end the question is: Who is to be master, man or his machines? As long as the control over technology rests primarily on economic calculation, the victor is not likely to be man.

Robert Heilbroner

It may strike us as odd that the idea of gain is a relatively modern one; we are schooled to believe that man is essentially an acquisitive creature and that left to himself he will behave as any self-respecting businessman would. The profit motive, we are constantly being told, is as old as man himself.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

Robert Heilbroner

[The great economists] can be called the worldly philosophers, for they sought to embrace in a scheme of philosophy the most worldly of all of man's activities—his drive for wealth.

Robert Heilbroner

He who enlists a man's mind wields a power even greater than the sword or the scepter.

Robert Heilbroner

Unlike modern man, who dreams of the world he will make, pre-modern man dreamed of the world he left.

Robert Heilbroner