Up until the Depression, recession had a moral character: it was supposed to purge the body economic of the greed and excess that attends a business expansion. – James Buchan
If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside. – James Buchan
The year 2008 was a reminder to those who had forgotten that there is such a thing as history and that the cycle of famine and feast in commerce, first identified in antiquity and well understood in the Middle Ages, was not suddenly abolished in modern times. – James Buchan
The truth is, of course, that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy. In other words, there is nothing timeless or God-given about filling stations and penicillin and plastic bags. – James Buchan