A Quote by Alfred Kahn

Whenever competition is feasible it is, for all its imperfections, superior to regulation as a means of serving the public interest.

Alfred Kahn

Quote Topics

Competition Feasible Imperfections Interest Means Public Public Interest Regulation Serving Superior Whenever

Quote Author

Alfred Kahn
American - Professor
October 17, 1917 - December 27, 2010

An industry devoted to serving the public's right to know gives twisted and evil men the means of becoming known. This problem is not obviously amenable to a solution, and it certainly is not amenable to a legal one. A regime of media regulation that would be both effective at preventing mass shootings and consistent with the American Constitution is no easier to imagine than a regime of gun regulation that would meet the same criteria.

James Taranto

Public interest criteria does not mean criteria that the public decides are in its interest. It means that the elite - via various appointed bodies - decide what the public's interest is for them.

Mark Steyn

With less regulation, I think you would see growth come back. Of course, there are situations where you need regulation. Antitrust regulation, for example, is a good idea because you want competition. But beyond that, it gets very difficult.

Eugene Fama

The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public.

Adam Smith

I recognize that there's an appetite that I'm now serving, and I'm happy to do so. I think it means quite a bit that science has achieved this level of public interest and access. And so I'm simultaneously astonished every day upon recognizing this, and I think it's a good sign for the country and possibly for the world.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition.

James Cash Penney

Public servants should be focused on serving the public - not any special interest group, and good governance should be an expectation - not an exception.

Abigail Spanberger

I saw how the regulation I called for made things worse, didn't help consumers and simple competition was better. And I started praising business and occasionally criticizing regulation.

John Stossel

If you are given a public responsibility, you have to listen, weigh up all the issues, but ultimately you have to form a view of what you genuinely think is in the public interest... put the public interest above the vested interest.

Graeme Samuel

I would draw a really big distinction between competition, or potential competition, and a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest implies wrongdoing, whereas competition is really healthy.

Bill Maris

Complete free trade is not politically feasible. Why? Because it's only in the general interest and in no one's special interest.

Milton Friedman

The remediableness criterion is an effort to deal symmetrically with real world institutions, both public and private, warts and all. The criterion is this: an extant mode of organization for which no superior feasible form of organization can be described and implemented with expected net gains is presumed to be efficient.

Oliver E. Williamson

The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.

Adam Smith

Personally, I do not see in Canada it would be a feasible thing if any Ministry organized taking over both the Health and the Disease of the entire community... even in the most favourable circumstances... there would be that absence of competition and that sense of independence... I do not believe it would be good for the profession or good for the Public.

William Osler

The source of wealth is from individuals with little or no history of interest in the game, who have happened upon football as a means of serving some hidden agenda.