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Bonus Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 430 of the original edition of Edwin Cannan’s 1927 collection, An Economist’s Protest; specifically, it’s the final paragraph of Cannan’s June 1926 Economica article “The Gospel of Mutual Service,” written for the sesquicentennial of the publication of Adam Smith‘s An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and delivered at Cannan’s home institution, the London School of Economics:

edwin-cannanI hope that no teacher in the [London] School [of Economics] will ever give any countenance to the pernicious belief that steady and honest service in satisfying the demand of the people for the necessaries and conveniences of life is something to be ashamed of because it is profitable.  The modern workman and the modern trader can practice virtue as well as a Greek philosopher, a mediaeval begging friar, or a twentieth-century social reformer.

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