Quotes About Capitalism

I think the thing about capitalism is it's an evil necessity, capitalism. Communism has been tried and failed, and socialism, that doesn't work very well. Capitalism works, but the problem about capitalism is it does mean that a few individuals become very wealthy. Therefore, I think those individuals have enormous responsibility to redistribute that wealth either by creating new businesses or creating new jobs and making sure that money just doesn't lie in a bank account for future generations.

We need to graduate from the ridiculous notion that greed is some kind of elixir for capitalism - it's the downfall of capitalism. Self-interest, maybe, but self-interest run amok does not serve anyone. The core value of conscious capitalism is enlightened self-interest. As Jim Cramer on CNBC says, "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered."

Anarchism is opposed to states, armies, slavery, the wages system, the landlord system, prisons, monopoly capitalism, oligopoly capitalism, state capitalism, bureaucracy, meritocracy, theocracy, revolutionary governments, patriarchy, matriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, protection rackets, intimidation by gangsters, and every other kind of coercive institution. In other words, anarchism opposes government in all its forms.

Capitalism may even be identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise.

Capitalism is like this fractal thing where anything that contains an element of capitalism anywhere inside it is just something that turns into capitalism. It is an incredibly defeatist attitude. If you choose to look at reality that way, I suppose you can, but you have to do enormous violence to reality to do so consistently.

Capitalism improves the quality of life for the working class not just because it leads to improved wages but also because it produces new, better, and cheaper goods.... Indeed, with capitalism, the emphasis shifted to producing goods as cheaply as possible for the masses--the working class--whereas artisans had previously produced their goods and wares mostly for the aristocracy. Under capitalism every business wants to cater to the masses, for that is where the money is.

Capitalism designates an economic system significantly characterized by the predominance of "capital." Capitalism and double entry bookkeeping are absolutely indissociable; their relationship to each other is that of form to content.

churches, like all the rest of our major institutions, are rooted in capitalism. For a church to attack capitalism is to 'bite the hand that feeds it.

Capitalism is chronically unstable.Boom and bust has always marked capitalism in the United States. There were panics in 1785, 1791, 1819, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1907, 1929 and 1987.In economies and politics, as in war, an astonishing number of people die, like the man on the railway crossing, defending their right of way. This is a poorly developed instinct in Switzerland. No country so firmly avows the principles of private enterprise but in few have the practical concessions to socialism been more numerous and varied.

Private capitalism makes a steam engine; State capitalism makes pyramids.

There are different ways to organise capitalism. Free-market capitalism is only one of them-and not a very good one at that.

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies. When they fail to come off its clergy simply say that they will be realized later on. Thus, if we have another boom, they will argue that the collapse of capitalism is only postponed. The fact that the greatest booms ever heard of followed Marx's formal prophecy of the downfall of capitalism is already forgotten, just as millions have long since forgotten the early Christian prophecy that the end of the world was at hand. The first Christians accepted postponements as docilely as the Communists of today.

We need to take a close look at the relationship between the economic system of Capitalism and the political system of Democracy. A democracy with high concentrations of private wealth buys votes and interferes with the ability of Capitalism to perform well. It is no longer one citizen, one vote.

Rarely has a collection of essays from a dozen scholars created a whole greater than the sum of its parts, but Capitalism Takes Command conveys with detail, coherence, and sophistication the changes in the American economy in the nineteenth century under the multiple imperatives of capitalism.

Capitalism, and capitalism alone, has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness and early death.

Capitalism is not a Ponzi scheme. Capitalism is a scheme of free markets.

There is only one way to kill capitalism - by taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

When profits are pursued by geographic interchange of goods, so that commerce for profit becomes the central mechanism of the system, we usually call it "commercial capitalism." In such a system goods are conveyed from ares where they are more common (and therefore cheaper) to areas where they are less common (and therefore less cheap). This process leads to regional specialization and to division of labor, both in agricultural production and in handicrafts.

It's high time for the art world to admit that the avant-garde is dead. It was killed by my hero, Andy Warhol, who incorporated into his art all the gaudy commercial imagery of capitalism (like Campbell's soup cans) that most artists had stubbornly scorned.

We who are members of the Communist Party repudiate the exclusive identification of democracy with capitalism. We declare that democracy can be widened, take on new aspects, become truly a rule of the people, only when it is extended to the economic life of the people, as in the Soviet Union. As far as women are concerned, the U.S.S.R. is a trailblazer for equal rights and equal opportunities.

Most of America's leading entrepreneurs are bound to the masts of their fortunes. They are allowed to keep their wealth only as long as they invest it in others. In a real sense, they can keep only what they give away. It has been given to others in the form of investments. It is embodied in a vast web of enterprises that retains its worth only through constant work and sacrifice. Capitalism is a system that begins not with taking but with giving to others.

Is it logical to ask how far away are we from the pope explaining that abortion can be justified, "in certain circumstances, in certain regions," and if it might be related to the evils of American capitalism and our immigration policy?

Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience-- yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim-- except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.

I am a strong believer in the free market. I am a strong believer in capitalism. But, I am also a strong believer that there are certain common goods - our air, our water, making sure that people are safe - that require to have some regulation.

We don't live in a capitalist totality. Capitalism couldn't survive as a totality anyway. We live in this complex system and we already live communism and anarchism in a million forms everyday.

We had one or another form of state capitalism during an extremely brief period of human history, which tells us essentially nothing about human nature. If you look at human societies and human interactions, you can find anything. You find selfishness, you find altruism, you find sympathy.

The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. ... If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism.

In America it is the so-called capitalist who is to blame for the fulfillment of Marx's prophecies. Beguiled by the state's siren song of special privilege, the capitalists have abandoned capitalism.

Aggressive capitalism leads the world, and we can see the results, especially in Europe: more poverty for the vast majority, and more riches for a few.

I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it.

Economics as a discipline has in effect become the study of capitalism. The two are taken as the same subject.

Schumpter's daring and dashing entrepreneur is now a legendary figure from the distant past - if not from the mythology of capitalism - or is to be found only in the demimonde of business, founding new ice cream parlors or "deep freeze subscription clubs".

Unbridled capitalism in the United States can't be sustained socially. It leads to tensions.

Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other

I still believe that workers must be the basic force which must organize and eventually transform society (along with peasants in poor countries). This is because they are the source of the profits which make capitalism what it is. They can shut the system down, and at the same time they possess the unique knowledge needed to make it work in everyone's interests.

Capitalism is an organized system to guarantee that greed becomes the primary force of our economic system and allows the few at the top to get very wealthy and has the rest of us riding around thinking we can be that way, too - if we just work hard enough, sell enough Tupperware and Amway products, we can get a pink Cadillac.

Unrestricted laissez faire capitalism allocates resources in a most efficient way to satisfy human wants without regard to the rationality or morality of those desires.

Democrats can have a different version of the line, or they can just say, no, we are the party of international peace and activism, and we're the party that's going to have a civilized capitalism.

Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.

No system in history capitalism has been more relentless in battering down ancient and fragile cultures, devouring the resources of whole regions, pulverizing centuries-old practices in a matter of years, and standardizing the varieties of human experience.

When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.

This is an incredibly creative time. It is a difficult time. It is a disparaging time. A time of cultural and global transitions based on the realization that the Earth cannot support nonsustainable practices anymore. I believe capitalism will eventually be replaced by a communitarian ethic where the rights and care of all beings will be taken into consideration, not just the greed of a corporate few.

Living under capitalism, I like learning to feel comfortable with activity that does not result in success — since non-success is the norm. Trying your best and making it is not the norm — it’s propaganda. Of course I play with notions of hype, too... The entire Comatonse website is a sarcastic hype-engine, sprawling forever, overwhelming the viewer with nothingness.

The uneven distribution of wealth in the world is due to the uneven distribution of capitalism.

I love the way capitalism finds a place - even for its enemies.

I think so much of neoliberalism and capitalism has caused people to live in a state of greed, fear and consumption that is covering up so much of what we really want.

A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.

There are self-styled "anarcho-capitalists" (not to be confused with anarchists of any persuasion), who want the state abolished as a regulator of capitalism, and government handed over to capitalists.