Paul Collier Quotes

#1. 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

#2. How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world? It requires compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get serious ... If economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children.

Paul Collier

#3. Electorates tend to get the politicians they deserve.

Paul Collier

#4. Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.

Paul Collier

#5. Pressure works, but it needs to be organized. This is the domain of the NGOs and the rock stars.

Paul Collier

#6. There is a simple way of avoiding excess risk-taking by the managers of our financial institutions. It is to make it a crime ... had a crime for reckless management of a financial institution been on the books, Northern Rock and RBS would not have blown up.

Paul Collier

#7. 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

#8. The aid agencies are not run by fools. they are full of intelligent people severely constrained by what public opinion permits.

Paul Collier

#9. 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

#10. Not all developing countries are the same.

Paul Collier

#11. Migration has been politicized before it has been analyzed.

Paul Collier

#12. Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used.

Paul Collier

#13. 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

#14. Change in the societies at the very bottom must come predominantly from within; we cannot impose it on them.

Paul Collier

#15. Eddie Robinson is about one word: winning and losing.

Paul Collier

#16. Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.

Paul Collier

#17. Poverty is not intrinsically a trap, otherwise we would all still be poor.

Paul Collier

#18. 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

#19. You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.

Paul Collier

#20. At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men

Paul Collier

#21. The key obstacle to reforming aid is public opinion.. Public opinion drives them into the "I care" photo opportunities that dominate aid.

Paul Collier