Monday, December 27, 2010

Never trust a businessman: who said this?

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from [the business community] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

- quoted in Tim Flannery, Here on Earth: An argument for hope
(Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2010), 220.

Without using a search engine, have a stab at the author of this quote.

7 comments:

Kevin Hargaden said...

Adam Smith?

Anonymous said...

Peter Costello / John Howard

Mike W said...

Was the head/ ex head of BHP Billiton in a recent speech?

Jon said...

If not Smith, then Lord Keynes?

Sam Charles Norton said...

Ford. Or maybe Rockefeller.

byron smith said...

Kevin was correct. It was indeed Adam Smith.

Anonymous said...

Definitely Adam Smith, but it looks slightly expanded on all the other times I've seen it quoted.