Hard-core structural poverty has a counterpart at the apex: hard-core structural affluence.

The political objective of universal capitalism is maximum individual autonomy, the separation of political power wielded by the holders of public office from economic power held by citizens, and the broad diffusion of privately owned economic power.

All this plan does is make everybody a capitalist. I know that the New York Stock Exchange says there are 25 million shareholders in the United States, but let me tell you something: about 15 million of those people could save their dividends for 10 years and maybe buy a new suit. That's not what I call capitalism.

That which is inherently nonfinanceable is financed. That which is inherently financeable is not financed. And the illogic of poverty amidst eagerness and ability to produce plenty goes on.

The rising productivity of labor is a myth, a statistical illusion created by measuring combined output in terms of labor input.

Private property works like circuitry in electronics, or piping in hydraulics. It conveys wages to the owners of labor power, as well as the various forms of nonwage property income to the owners of capital. In itself, it is no more responsible for maldistribution of purchasing power than the science of bookkeeping is responsible for bankruptcy.

Money is not a part of the visible sector of the economy; people do not consume money. Money is not a physical factor of production, but rather a yardstick for measuring economic input, economic outtake and the relative values of the real goods and services of the economic world. Money provides a method of measuring obligations, rights, powers and privileges. It provides a means whereby certain individuals can accumulate claims against others, or against the economy as a whole, or against many economies.