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Connexions Quotations
Capitalism
Quotes
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Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim:
The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
- Bertrand Russell
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Capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value,
to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus-labour.
Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.
- Karl Marx
Capital, Volume I, Chapter 10 (1867)
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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
- John Maynard Keynes
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A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.
- Howard Scott
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I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.
- Eugene Debs
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In every stockjobbing swindle every one knows that some time or other the crash must come,
but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbour, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.
Après moi le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation.
Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society.
- Karl Marx
Capital, Volume I, Chapter 10
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Know thy enemy
Know thy enemy:
he does not care what colour you are
provided you work for him
and yet you do!
he does not care how much you earn
provided you earn more for him
and yet you do!
he does not care who lives in the room at the top
provided he owns the building
and yet you strive!
he will let you write against him
provided you do not act against him
and yet you write!
he sings the praises of humanity
but knows machines cost more than men.
Bargain with him, he laughs, and beats you at it;
challenge him, and he kills.
Sooner than lose the things he owns
he will destroy the world.
SMASH CAPITAL NOW!
But as you hasten to be free
And build your commonwealth
Do not forget the enemy
Who lies within yourself.
- Christopher Logue
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In democratic countries, the most important private organizations are economic. Unlike secret societies, they are able to exercise their terrorism without illegality, since they do not threaten to kill their enemies, but only to starve them.
- Bertrand Russell
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Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.
- Vandana Shiva
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Neoliberal house of horrors
If Hitchcock had made a film about neoliberal economics, the Chicago School of Economics would be the Bates Motel, Milton Friedman would be the demented proprietor, and Friedrich Hayek would be the dead mother in the attic.
- Ulli Diemer
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There is no human institution that approaches totalitarianism as closely as a business corporation.
- Noam Chomsky
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What is free trade, what is free trade under the present condition of society? It is freedom of capital. When you have overthrown the few national barriers which still restrict the progress of capital, you will merely have given it complete freedom of action.
- Karl Marx
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To learn more about Capitalism, explore the Connexions Subject Index Capitalism page and the History of Capitalism page.
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