Quotation of the Day…

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… is from pages 63-64 of the late William Baumol’s 2002 book, The Free-Market Innovation Machine [original emphasis]:

But in both Roman and Chinese societies there were two types of activity that incurred unambiguous disgrace: participation in commerce or in productive activity (with the possible exception of some gentlemanly agricultural undertakings). In Rome, for example, such disgraceful endeavors were left to freedmen – to manumitted slaves and their sons. And these individuals, too, strove to accumulate sufficient means so that they could afford to leave their degrading occupations, ar at least make it possible for later generations in their families to achieve respectabilty. It is little wonder, then, that there was not much productive entrepreneurship in these societies. Even though the Chinese, in particular, produced an astonishing abundance of inventions, there was little innovation, in the sense of the application and distribution of the inventions. Most such inventions were put to little productive use and often soon disappeared and were completely forgotten.

DBx: The lesson: The more we denigrate commerce and entrepreneurship, the poorer we will be.