Alfred Marshall in [amazon_link id=”B00882NQLM” target=”_blank” ]Elements of the Economics of Industry[/amazon_link]: “As a cathedral is something more than the stones of which it is built, as a person is something more than a series of thoughts and feelings, so the life of society is something more than the sum of the lives of its individual members. It is true that the action of the whole is made up of that of its constituent parts; and that in most economic problems the best starting point is to be found in the motives that affect the individual…. but it is also true… that economics has a great and increasing concern in motives connected with the collective ownership of property and the collective pursuit of important aims.”

[amazon_image id=”B00882NQLM” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Economics of Industry: By Alfred Marshall and Mary Paley Marshall (Classic Reprint)[/amazon_image]

(Marshall was also absolutely insistent on the importance of economists writing clearly in language other people could understand, the issues being of such importance to everyone.)