… is from page 214 of Deirdre McCloskey’s and Alberto Mingardi’s superb 2020 book, The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State:
Singling out certain kinds of activities as parasitic (“value extracting”) reveals an amateurish understanding of how an economy works. “Value extracting” financial businesses, the usual example these days favored by the amateurs, in fact directs resources to entrepreneurs under innovism. New ideas are commonly “inessential” at first: how can you consider essential something you don’t know yet? The bicycle and the auto were at first rich men’s toys. In 1783 in France Benjamin Franklin was present at the first manned ascent in a hot-air balloon. A companion snorted, “What is the use of that?!” To which Ben replied, “What is the use of a newborn child?”
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