Paul Collier Quotes

• “Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used.”

  Paul Collier

  34 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Rebels usually have something to complain about, and if they don't they make it up. All too often the really disadvantaged are in no position to rebel; they just suffer quietly.”

  Paul Collier

  14 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.”

  Paul Collier

  13 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.”

  Paul Collier

  10 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Change in the societies at the very bottom must come predominantly from within; we cannot impose it on them.”

  Paul Collier

  9 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Launching a turnaround takes courage. I cannot measure that and so it is not going to be included in my analysis, but behind the moments of change there are always a few people within these societies who have decided to try to make a difference.”

  Paul Collier

  6 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Most conduct is guided by norms rather than by laws. Norms are voluntary and are effective because they are enforced by peer pressure.”

  Paul Collier

  5 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “The aid agencies are not run by fools. they are full of intelligent people severely constrained by what public opinion permits.”

  Paul Collier

  4 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Electorates tend to get the politicians they deserve.”

  Paul Collier

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

• “And so a miserable but possible scenario is that countries in the bottom billion oscillate between the traps and limbo, perhaps switching in the process from one trap to another..
  
  Let me be clear: we cannot rescue them. The societies of the bottom billion can only be rescued from within. In every society of the bottom billion there are people working for change, but usually they are defeated by the powerful internal forces stacked against them. We should be helping the heroes. So far, our efforts have been paltry: through inertia, ignorance, and incompetence, we have stood by and watched them lose.
  
  Let me be clear: we cannot rescue them. These societies of the bottom billion can only be rescued from within.”

  Paul Collier

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Poverty is not intrinsically a trap, otherwise we would all still be poor.”

  Paul Collier

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Not all developing countries are the same.”

  Paul Collier

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “An identity of being ‘on the left’ has become a lazy way of feeling morally superior; an identity of being ‘on the right’ has become a lazy way of feeling ‘realistic’.”

  Paul Collier

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “The key obstacle to reforming aid is public opinion.. Public opinion drives them into the "I care" photo opportunities that dominate aid.”

  Paul Collier

  2 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.”

  Paul Collier

  2 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Populism offers the headless heart; ideology offers the heartless head.”

  Paul Collier

  2 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Persuading everyone to behave decently to each other because the society is so fragile is a worthy goal, but it may be more straightforward just to make the societies less fragile, which means developing their economies.”

  Paul Collier

  2 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Encouraging your firm to have a decent sense of purpose is your contribution to society, but continuing to work for one which lacks purpose is personally soul-destroying.”

  Paul Collier

  2 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

• “The transformation of power into authority is essential for building reciprocity across huge groups of people, such as everyone accepting the obligation to pay their taxes. Leaders are not engineers of human souls, but they can harness our emotions. The dangerous leaders are those who rely only on enforcement. The valuable ones are those who use their position as communicator-in-chief at the hub of their networked group – they achieve influence through crafting narratives and actions. All leaders add and refine the narratives that fit within the belief system of their group, but great leaders build an entire belief system.28”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “They are the people who currently dominate the media. An identity of being ‘on the left’ has become a lazy way of feeling morally superior;”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Governments could recognize the huge value added if the two biological parents choose to live together with the child: a tax-credit bonus could reduce the tax burden for those who are taxpayers, and income could be supplemented by an equivalent amount for those who are not. The commitment of young parents to their children benefits us all, and we should be prepared to pay for it. When parents withhold this commitment, the rest of us pay for it – heavily.”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “The critical changes in trade policy... are politically difficult not because they threaten interests (they don't) but because they do not fit into any of the current slogans and so don't make it onto the agenda.”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Pressure works, but it needs to be organized. This is the domain of the NGOs and the rock stars.”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “As an economist, I have learned that decentralized, market-based competition – the vital core of capitalism – is the only way to deliver prosperity, but what are the founts of the other aspects of well-being? Whereas economic man is presumed to be lazy, purposive action such as work is important for esteem.”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Suppose a country starts its independence with the three economic characteristics that globally make a country prone to civil war: low income, slow growth, and dependence upon primary commodity exports. It is playing Russian roulette. That is not just an idle metaphor: the risk that a country in the bottom billion falls into civil war in any five-year period is nearly one in six, the same risk facing a player of Russian roulette.”

  Paul Collier

  1 Copy to clipboard Copy quote