SOCIALISM QUOTES III

quotations about socialism


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A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

LUDWIG VON MISES
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Human Action


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Tags: Ludwig von Mises


I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly.

TONY BLAIR

maiden speech as MP for Sedgefield, July 6, 1983

Tags: Tony Blair


Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

RONALD WRIGHT

America & Americans


A socialist is just someone who is unable to get over his or her astonishment that most people who have lived and died have spent lives of wretched, fruitless, unremitting toil.

TERRY EAGLETON

Ideology: An Introduction


Anyone who objects to any government whatsoever as a form of socialism ought not to pull that socialist lever in their home, the one that makes their waste disappear in a whirlpool into the socialized sewage treatment plant.

JOHN MÉDAILLE

The Distributist Review, August 31, 2009


Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.

LEN DEIGHTON

Funeral in Berlin


Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.

ZYGMUNT BAUMAN

Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman

Tags: Zygmunt Bauman


People came from far and near
To buy poison and tears
The decor was delectable
The service impeccable
It was expensive -- what isn't?
It sold black plague and socialism
There was no reason to exist
If you weren't on the mailing list

FUTURE BIBLE HEROES

"Death Opened a Boutique"


Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

ÉMILE DURKHEIM

Le socialisme

Tags: Emile Durkheim


The basic problem I really have is that whenever I meet leftists in the socialist and Marxist movements, I'm called a petit-bourgeois individualist. I'm supposed to shrink after this. Usually I'm called petit-bourgeois individualist by students, and by academicians, who've never done a days work life [sic] in their entire biography, whereas I have spent years in factories and the trade unions, in foundries and auto plants. So after I have to swallow the word petit-bourgeois, I don't mind the word individualist at all!

MURRAY BOOKCHIN

attributed, Anarchism in America


This isn't new. Those who favor socialism always make the moral case for it. The truth is, maybe they actually believe in it, but in the real world, socialism harms, it weakens the economies of countries that have tried it. It just does. Weaker economies hurt everybody in them. Socialism kills incentive, opportunity, freedom. It is the opposite of what America is all about. Look, socialism always harms the people it claims to help the most. It handicaps them, leaving them weaker, less self-determined, less free. We should have this debate out in the open.

BOBBY JINDAL

The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2015


Any fresh survey of men's political actions shows that, in those who have enough energy to be politically effective, love of power is a stronger motive than economic self-interest. Love of power actuates the great millionaires, who have far more money than they can spend, but continue to amass wealth merely in order to control more and more of the world's finance. Love of power is obviously the ruling motive of many politicians. It is also the chief cause of wars, which are admittedly almost always a bad speculation from the mere point of view of wealth. For this reason, a new economic system which merely attacks economic motives and does not interfere with the concentration of power is not likely to effect any very great improvement in the world. This is one of the chief reasons for regarding state socialism with suspicion.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"Pitfalls of Socialism", Political Ideals


By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

IAN MCEWAN

City Limits, May 27, 1983


Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

speech at l'assemblée constituante, September 12, 1848

Tags: Alexis de Tocqueville


In seeking greater justice and equality in economic conditions, Socialism rests on a strong moral basis; but in seeking no more than greater material ease and comfort, it betrays the presence of mortality.

FRANKLIN VERZELIUS NEWTON PAINTER

attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism


Socialism is also unselfishness embraced as an axiom.

ROGER KIMBALL

The New Criterion


Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless.

KENNETH BAKER

London Observer, July 13, 1986


The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

JOHN ADAMS

A Defence of the Constitutions of Government

Tags: John Adams


We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! And with my inclination to practical action it seems obvious to me that we have to put a better, more just, more moral system in its place, one which, as it were, has arms and legs and better arms and legs than the present one!

GREGOR STRASSER

"Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future", June 15, 1926


We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called socialism.

VLADIMIR LENIN

"To the Rural Poor", Collected Works