Daily Inspiration Quote by Paul Samuelson

A true believer in markets just confessed, slyly, that markets are not a religion. Samuelson’s line has the crisp provocation of someone who spent his life quantifying trade-offs and still wanted room for moral seriousness. “Every good cause” is the bait: it gestures at civil rights, public health, education, environmental protection, the whole portfolio of things a spreadsheet struggles to value. Then comes the tell: “worth some inefficiency.” Not “costless,” not “optimal,” not “Pareto-improving.” Some inefficiency is the admission price for decency.

The intent is corrective. Economists (and the politicians who borrow their language) often wield “efficiency” as a conversation-stopper, a sterile trump card that implies anything less than maximum output is stupidity or corruption. Samuelson flips that: inefficiency can be a feature when the objective isn’t just maximizing GDP but reshaping who benefits, who is protected, who gets a shot. The subtext is that administrative friction, redistribution, and regulation aren’t automatically evidence of failure; they can be the mechanical byproduct of fairness, accountability, and democratic constraint.

Context matters: Samuelson helped formalize modern welfare economics, where “efficiency” and “equity” are separable goals. The quip echoes that framework in plain language. It’s also a warning to reformers: if you demand a perfectly streamlined system, you may be demanding a system that can’t afford compassion. The line doesn’t sanctify waste; it insists that “efficient” is not the same as “right.”