Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on June 23, 2020
… is from page 39 of the May 9th, 2020, draft of the important forthcoming monograph from Deirdre McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi, The Illiberal and Anti-Entrepreneurial State of Mariana Mazzucato (footnote deleted; link added):
The Enrichment emerged in Britain first, and government spending there was until well into the 20th century focused on the defense of the realm, the protection of the sea routes to India, and the servicing the debt contracted to defeat at last the French. As the economic historian Joel Mokyr puts it, “any policy objective aimed deliberately at promoting long-run economic growth would be hard to document in Britain before and during the Industrial Revolution…. In Britain the public sector by and large eschewed any entrepreneurial activity.”
DBx: Pictured above is the British engineer George Stephenson (1781-1848). Born poor to illiterate parents, and himself illiterate until early adulthood, Stephenson’s creativity and diligence contributed much to the development of railroads.
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