Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The term pollution is used to defame productive human activity.
In plain terms
Calling industrial output pollution is an attempt to name it evil.
What can you take from it?
Language shapes how we view industry.

Where it applies

  • economic debate
  • public discourse

Putting it to work

  • critique environmental language

Questions to consider

  • Does language hide facts?

Another view

It ignores legitimate environmental harms.

More from George Reisman

  1. The green movement, in other words, is the red movement stripped of the veneer of reason and science and bent on the destruction of reason and science rather t…

    Permalink to quote #1
  2. Whoever claims that economic competition represents 'survival of the fittest' in the sense of the law of the jungle, provides the clearest possible evidence of…

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. The truth is that economic competition is the very opposite of competition in the animal kingdom. It is not a competition in the grabbing off of scarce nature-…

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. French is the language that turns dirt into romance.

    Stephen KingStephen King quote #2
  2. For a start, let's look at the Grotto itself. By and large these are extremely aptly named, 'Grot' meaning rubbish and 'Oh' being exclamation of disappointed s…

    Peter CoreyPeter Corey quote #3
  3. But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we sense something of …

    J. L. AustinJ. L. Austin quote #4