Socialism Quotes - Page 2

Defy the central planners. Upend their designs for your life. Be a staunch individualist. Stand on your rights.

You see," I said, "I'm a socialist. I don't think this world was made for a small minority to dance on the faces of everyone else.

H.G.Wells

Richard, Bill has the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the world owes him a living. He told me sincerely - smugly! - that of course everyone was entitled to the best possible medical and hospital service - free of course, unlimited of course, and of course the government should pay for it.

Robert A. Heinlein

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

Margaret Thatcher

Georgi M. Derluguian's Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus tells the extraordinary story of Musa Shanib from Abkhazia, the leading intellectual of this turbulent region whose incredible career passed from Soviet dissident intellectual through democratic political reformer and Muslim fundamentalist war leader up to respected professor of philosophy, his entire career marked by the strange admiration for Pierre Bourdieu's thought. There are two ways to approach such a figure. The first reaction is to dismiss it as local eccentricity, to treat it with benevolent irony - "what a strange choice, Bourdieu - who knows what this folkloric guy sees in Bourdieu...". The second reaction is to directly assert the universal scope of theory - "see how universal theory is: every intellectual from Paris to Chechenia and Abkhazia can debate his theories..." The true task, of course, is to avoid both these options and to assert the universality of a theory as the result of a hard theoretical work and struggle, a struggle that is not external to theory: the point is not (only) that Shanib had to do a lot of work to break the constraints of his local context and penetrate Bourdieu - this appropriation of Bourdieu by an Abkhazian intellectual also affects the substance of the theory itself, transposing it into a different universe. Did - mutatis mutandis - Lenin not do something similar with Marx? The shift of Mao with regard to Lenin AND Stalin concerns the relationship between the working class and peasants: both Lenin and Stalin were deeply distrustful towards the peasants, they saw as one of the main tasks of the Soviet power to break the inertia of the peasants, their substantial attachment to land, to "proletarize" them and thus fully expose them to the dynamics of modernization - in clear contrast to Mao who, in his critical notes on Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (from 1958) remarked that "Stalin's point of view /.../ is almost altogether wrong. The basic error is mistrust of the peasants." The theoretical and political consequences of this shift are properly shattering: they imply no less than a thorough reworking of Marx's Hegelian notion of proletarian position as the position of "substanceless subjectivity," of those who are reduced to the abyss of their subjectivity.

Slavoj Žižek

The history of the GDR journalism is a story of partisanship.

Patrick Conley

Every socialist wishes to revolutionize society from the economic angle and all the blessings he expects are to come through a change in economic institutions. This of course implies a theory about social causation—the theory that the economic pattern is the really operative element in the sum total of the phenomena that we call society.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

Albert Einstein

I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation.

Malala Yousafzai

Marx called Darwin a plagiarist and Malthus a fraud. Now all Marxists are Malthusian Darwinists.

A.E. Samaan

For 70 years Democrats bitterly denied being "socialists". Bernie Sanders has done the service of exposing them.

A.E. Samaan

I am no worshiper of cloth of any color, but I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle.

Helen Keller

Neither Fascist Italy nor Spain adopted eugenics as an ideology central to their form of government the way the National Socialist did. However, socialist and progressive nations such as Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway did adopt and implement eugenics. This is because eugenics is the safety valve of a centrally planned economy. Central planners like John Maynard Keynes fear a population that is not as meticulously planned as the economy. They fear the unproductive sectors out-breeding the productive sectors of the population. This is also why Keynes was a lobbyist for the British eugenics movement both before and after The Holocaust.

A.E. Samaan

They say hell is other people. I believe that. But what I didn’t know until now is so can heaven be.

Ella James

For what is socialism? With the frills removed, it is people collectively running society. Instead of being the prisoners of anarchic capitalist competition and the mad rush for profit at any cost, it is working together for the common good. Our tremendous co-operative power would be controlled, not by a ruling class in the search for ever greater profits, but democratically and for the fulfillment of human need.

Alex Callinicos

It may well be that there will be this socialism, Juliana,’ she said, ‘but I can tell you right now that no amount of socialism will make my madam was her own underwear.’ - ‘Aunt Juliana’s Indian

Petina Gappah

Every emancipation is a restoration of the human world and of human relationships to a man himself.

Karl Marx

Son, it’s easy tae be guid oan a fu’ belly. It’s when a man’s goat two bites an’ wan o’ them he’ll share, ye ken whit he’s made o’. Listen. In ony country in the world, who are the only folk that ken whit it’s like tae leeve in that country? The folk at the boattom. The rest can a’ kid themselves oan. They can afford to hiv fancy ideas. We canny, son. We loass the wan idea o’ who we are, we’re deid. We’re wan anither. Tae survive, we’ll respect wan anither. When the time comes, we’ll a’ move forward thegither, or nut at all.

William McIlvanney

It is from the death of the social that socialism will emerge, as it is from the death of God that religions emerge.

Jean Baudrillard

Then all at once he´d hear his own voice enunciating clearly and firmly, feel its reverberance along the walls and ceiling, feel ears growing tense, men and women leaning forward in their chairs, see the rows of faces quite clearly, the groups of people who couldn´t find seats crowding at the doors. Phrases like `protest, massaction, united working-class of this country and the world, revolution´, would light up the eyes and faces under him like the glare of a bonfire.

John dos Passos

You are cordially invited to go fuck yourself.

A.E. Samaan

The right of self-determination of the peoples includes the right to a state of their own. However, the foundation of a state does not increase the freedom of a people. The system of the United Nations that is based on nation-states has remained inefficient. Meanwhile, nation-states have become serious obstacles for any social development. Democratic confederalism is the contrasting paradigm of the oppressed people. Democratic confederalism is a non-state social paradigm. It is not controlled by a state. At the same time, democratic confederalism is the cultural organizational blueprint of a democratic nation. Democratic confederalism is based on grassroots participation. Its decision-making processes lie with the communities. Higher levels only serve the coordination and implementation of the will of the communities that send their delegates to the general assemblies. For limited space of time they are both mouthpiece and executive institution. However, the basic power of decision rests with the local grassroots institutions.

Abdullah Öcalan

As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that socialism, notwithstanding all its self-compaceny, can scarcely help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do? It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thingbeing done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, beacuse we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.

Bastiat

It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for social experiments, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of the success of these experiments, they will request a portion of mankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is well known how popular the ideaof trying all systems is, and one of their chiefs has been known seriously to demand of the Constituent Assembly a parish, with all its inhabitants, upon which to make his experiments. It is thus that an inventor will make a small machine before he makes one of the regular size. Thus the chemist sacrifices some substances, the agriculturist some seed and corner of his field, to make trial of an idea. But think of the difference between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his substances, between the agriculturist and his seed! The Socialist thinks, in all sincerity, that there is the same difference between himself and mankind. No wonder the politicians of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artifical production of the legislator's genius. This idea, the result of a classical education, has taken possession of all the thinkers and great writers of our country. To all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator appear to be the same as those that exist between the clay and the potter.

Bastiat

I have always preferred the contemplative to the active life. I prefer the freedom to see matters from several viewpoints, to appreciate ironies, and indeed to change my opinion as I learn something new. To be politically active means to surrender this freedom. I say nothing against activism for others. It is only through the committed that necessary changes come. But each to his own path. [A Cautious Case for Socialism, Dissent Magazine, 1978]

Kenneth J Arrow

And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain (...) It’s the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease – they’ve run out of other people’s money.

Margaret Thatcher

The ritual denunciation of the so-called ‘socialist’ states is replete with distortions and often outright lies.

Noam Chomsky

Ruin, therefore, is not caused by lavatories but it's something that starts in people's heads. So when these clowns start shouting "Stop the ruin!" - I laugh!' 'I swear to you, I find it laughable! Every one of them needs to hit himself on the back of the head and then when he has knocked all the hallucinations out of himself and gets on with sweeping out backyards - which is his real job - all this "ruin" will automatically disappear

Mikhail Bulgakov

The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional faculties are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals

Milton Friedman

sometimes try not to judge, not to think ...& let the situation speak because wisdom lies there.

Prakhar Singh

A man with a golden gun may have a ruthless heart & may have a golden Heart too

Prakhar Singh

A man with a golden gun may have a ruthless heart... & may have a golden Heart too

Prakhar Singh

Everybody knows that the dice are loadedEverybody rolls with their fingers crossedEverybody knows the war is overEverybody knows the good guys lostEverybody knows the fight was fixedThe poor stay poor, the rich get richThat's how it goesEverybody knows

Leonard Cohen

I think, ladies and gentlemen, and I particularly address those of you who have a socialist outlook, that we should at least permit this socialist economy to prove its superiority. Let's allow it to show that it is advanced, that it is omnipotent, that it has defeated you, that it has overtaken you. Let us not interfere with it. Let us stop selling to it and giving it loans. If it's all that powerful, then let it stand on its own feet for ten or fifteen years. Then we will see what it looks like. I can tell you what it will look like. I am being quite serious now. When the Soviet economy will no longer be able to deal with everything, it will have to reduce its military preparations. It will have to abandon the useless space effort and it will have to feed and clothe its own people. And the system will be forced to relax. Thus, all I ask of you is that as long as this Soviet economy is so proud, so flourishing, and yours is so rotten and so moribund—stop helping it. When has a cripple ever helped along an athlete?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If you think equality will stop the fighting, you're deluding yourself! If everyone receives the same compensation, they will stop working for it, which will lead to the weakening of our nation! The only result will be conflict born from poverty!

Adachitoka

I have been studying the principles of socialism deeply of late, and I came to the conclusion that I must join the cause. It looked good to me. You work for the equal distribution of property and start in by swiping all you can and sitting on it. Ah, noble scheme! Me for it!

P.G. Wodehouse

Socialism is socialism. Government run enterprises are just as inept under democratic governments as they are under autocratic governments.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

If you ask a conservative for a statement of his political convictions, he may well say that he has none, and that the greatest heresy of modernity is precisely to see politics as a matter of convictions as though one could recuperate, at the level of political purpose, the consoling certainty which once was granted by religious faith. In another sense, however, conservatism does rest in a system of belief, and is opposed as much to the theory as to the practice of socialist and liberal politics.

Roger Scruton

Socialists eat their children. The poets, artists, and radicals are murdered first once statists come into power. Statists abhor free thinking.

A.E. Samaan

But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing towards a madhouse, one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried Individualism and found it nasty.

G.K. Chesterton

I think it's wrong that only one percent of the people should own ninety percent of the country.

Sally Wentworth

You rich people are all the same. You couldn't care less about the other half of the world. They can all starve to death for all you care!

Sally Wentworth

What is put into the hands of B cannot be put into the hands of A.

Henry Hazlitt

Veal! Trust these bloated plutocrats to eat the flesh of poor, newly-born calves!

Sally Wentworth

State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.Quoted in The Situationists and the City, pg. 194

Friedrich Engels

My idea of socialism is no state monopoly. There should be stress on the subjectivity of the human being. You need good material conditions, a high level of culture, much freedom and friendship. And it won't come today or tomorrow. It's a long and winding road

Marek Edelman

Question: Which Mediterranean government shares all of Ronald Reagan's views on international terrorism, the present danger of Soviet advance, the hypocrisy of the United Nations, the unreliability of Europe, the perfidy of the Third World and the need for nuclear defense policy? Question: Which Mediterranean government is Ronald Reagan trying, with the help of George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, to replace with a government led by a party which professes socialism and which contains extreme leftists?If you answered 'the government of Israel' to both of the above, you know more about political and international irony than the President does.

Christopher Hitchens

The train resembles the Soviet type and is quite comfortable, but all socialist structures I have ever encountered have toilets stemming from a single model engineered by the Orthodox Church in Tsarist Russia to ensure that man never be allowed to forget the corruption of the flesh.

Arthur Miller

Unappreciated because too many of his [Rudyard Kipling's] peers were socialists.

Jorge Luis Borges

The IPL, involving the socialist principle of a salary cap and the protectionist mechanism of quotas, is not perhaps the best example of a market left flourishingly to its own devices and dynamics.

Gideon Haigh

There is nothing illogical in the desire of the "have-nots" to appropriate the wealth of the "haves"; in fact, it is part and parcel of the law of animal life. The bear robs the hive and the wolf the fold, and when "nature red in tooth and claw" is stretched into its human dimension, there is nothing irrational in Marx's theory that, granted the power, one social class should devour another. But what is irrational is, to assume that by robbing the hive the bear will assume the industry of the bee, or by robbing the fold the wolf will become as pacific as the sheep. It is astonishing that a man of Marx's high intelligence could have believed in ritualistic cannibalism on the social plane; that by wresting the forces of production from the bourgeoisie and centralizing them in the hands of the proletariat, the proletariat would automatically aacquire the skills of the ruling class. And it is equally astonishing that a man of Lenin's mental calibre could have attempted to put this magic into practice.

J.F.C. Fuller

Tolerance or intolerance can be attributed as the single most important factor in understanding the psychology of any society, viz. a viz., its attitude towards peace, progress and growth. Author (One Vs All: Beware Mr.Prime Minister, It's India Impossible)

Dr.Ashok Anand

Socialism does not mean getting together in a parliament and passing laws, socialism means for us overthrowing the ruling classes with all the brutality [loud laughter] that the proletariat is capable of deploying in its struggle.

Rosa Luxemburg

Socialists claim to be in favor of equitable redistribution of income and wealth, but who determines what is equitable and does the actual redistribution?

Dinesh D'Souza

Not content with the liberal creed of equality of rights, of equality before the law, the socialist State would trample on such equality on behalf of the monstrous and impossible goal of equality or uniformity of results--or rather, would erect a new privileged elite, a new class, in the name of bringing about such an impossible equality. Socialism was a confused and hybrid movement because it tried to achieve the lbieral goals of freedom, peace and industrial harmony and growth--goals which can only be achieved through liberty and the seperation of government from virtuallty--by imposting the old conservative means of statism, collectivism, and hierarchical privilege.

Murray N. Rothbard

Unchecked Corporate power leads to tyranny just like unchecked Government power.

J.Adam Snyder

All Nazi champions insist again and again that Marxism and Bolshevism are the quintessence of the Jewish mind, and that it is the great historic mission of Nazism to root out this pest. It is true that this attitude did not prevent the German nationalists either from coöperating with the German communists in undermining the Weimar Republic, or from training their black guards in Russian artillery and aviation camps in the years 1923–1933, or— in the period from August, 1939, until June, 1941—from entering into a close political and military complicity with Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, public opinion supports the view that Nazism and Bolshevism are philosophies—Weltanschauungen—implacably opposed to each other.

Ludwig von Mises

Dr. Rex Curry, the professor and attorney from Florida, has debated and largely proven the unavoidable evidence that Hitler's National Socialism was significantly influenced by Bellamy's 'nationalistic' form of 'socialism.' Curry is famous for making the claim that Hitler adopted the 'stiff-arm salute' from Francis and Edward Bellamy.

A.E. Samaan

In truth, it is no more clear in our time than it was in Marx's how socialism will come about in either developed or undeveloped countries; what is clear is that for humanity to have a decent future, it must come about.

Benjamin Kunkel

They want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don't realize that everyone's good depends on everyone's cooperation.

Richard Adams

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Socialism Quotes - Page 2

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