Quote of the afternoon: Menger on economic progress

“The quantities of consumption goods at human disposal are limited only by the
extent of human knowledge of the causal connections between things, and by the
extent of human control over these things. Increasing understanding of the causal connections between things and human welfare, and increasing control of the less proximate conditions responsible for human welfare, have led mankind, therefore,
from a state of barbarism and the deepest misery to its present stage of civilisation
and well-being, and have changed vast regions inhabited by a few miserable,
excessively poor, men into densely populated civilised countries. Nothing is more
certain than that the degree of economic progress of mankind will still, in future
epochs, be commensurate with the degree of progress of human knowledge.”
- Carl Menger, founder of Austrian economics, from 
his Principles of Economics (1870)