Quotes About Capitalism

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does -- if that catch-phrase has any meaning -- but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice

I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.

If we don't accept loneliness, then capitalism wins hands down. Because capitalism is all about trying to convince people that you can distract yourself, that you can make it better. And it ain't true.

A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.

Capitalism had arisen through the misuse and exaggeration of certain rights, notably the right of property - the basis of economic freedom - and the right of contract, which is one of the main functions of economic freedom. Therefore, even under Capitalism, so long as the old principles were remembered it was possible to recall the principles whereby Society had once been sane and well ordered.

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

The Family in particular, but also other really **** conservatives come to call what is "Biblical Capitalism." The idea that capitalism is ordained in the Bible and that inasmuch as we interfere with the market, we're interfering with God's literal and visible hand.

The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by capitalism.

The European Union is effectively a union dominated by the German political and economic elite. Its main function is to serve as a nucleus for financial capitalism and to ease the road for that capitalism. The other functions just irritate everyone: it's undemocratic; decisions are not made by parliament; the European Parliament is not sovereign.

The sin of capitalism, perhaps, is to make wants feel like needs, to give to simple silly stuff the urgency of near-physical necessity: I must have it. The grace of capitalism is to make wants feel like hopes, so that material objects and stuff can feel like the possibility of something heroic and civic.

To be sure, the use of force by one party in a market transaction in order to improve his price was no invention of capitalism. Unequal exchange is an ancient practice. What was remarkable about capitalism as a historical system was the way in which this unequal exchange could be hidden; indeed, hidden so well that it is only after five hundred years of the operation of this mechanism that even the avowed opponents of the system have begun to unveil it systematically.

Capitalism is of this material world; it provides us with the means to live; it empowers us within the known world of sense and human reason. If it is to be measured by a strict standard of holiness, by religious normativity alone, then there can never be a moral capitalism.

I invested in many companies, and I'm happy this one worked. This is capitalism. You invest in stock, it goes up, it goes down. You know, if you don't like capitalism, you don't like making money with stock, move to Cuba or China.

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.

The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.

One of the bitter ironies of the 20th century was that communism, which began as an egalitarian doctrine accusing capitalism of selfishness and calloused sacrifices of others, became in power a system whose selfishness and callousness toward others made the sins of capitalism pale.

While I haven't read economist Robin Hahnel's work, replacing capitalism would be at the very bottom of my list of priorities - to be considered only after everything else had been tried. Improving our capitalistic system however, is at the top of my list and is of course the major theme of "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism."

Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.

In America, we don't, in daily discourse, use the words 'capitalism' or 'socialism.' They've been kind of nonexistent words, I would say, amongst the general public.

Here's what I don't think works: An economic system that was founded in the 16th century and another that was founded in the 19th century. I'm tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century, we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.

I see, therefore, the rentier aspect of capitalism as a transitional phase which will disappear when it has done its work. And with the disappearance of its rentier aspect much else in it besides will suffer a sea-change. It will be, moreover, a great advantage of the order of events which I am advocating, that the euthanasia of the rentier, of the functionless investor, will be nothing sudden, merely a gradual but prolonged continuance of what we have seen recently in Great Britain, and will need no revolution.

What we are seeing in cities such as Chicago, Athens and other dead zones of capitalism throughout the world is the beginning of a long struggle for the institutions, values and infrastructures that make critical education and community the center of a robust, radical democracy. This is a challenge for young people and all those invested in the promise of a democracy that extends not only the meaning of politics, but also a commitment to economic justice and democratic social change.

Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress.

The more moral the people are in their business dealings, the less paperwork you need, the more handshakes you can have, the more the wheels of capitalism work better because there's trust in the marketplace. Business ethics is not a joke. And, in fact, I think most businesses that I've dealt with encourage exactly that type of behavior.

The 21st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.

I think commercialism helps Christmas and I think that the more capitalism we can inject into the Christmas holiday the more spiritual I feel about it

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.

It is certain that many intellectuals envy the higher income of prosperous businessmen and that these feelings drive them toward socialism. They believe that the authorities of a socialist commonwealth would pay them higher salaries than those that they earn under capitalism.

Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.

If we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically.

What I have learned about corporate capitalism, roughly, is that it is an act of theft, by and large, through which a very few live very high off the work, invention, and creativity of very many others. It is the Grand Larceny of our particular time in history, the Grand Larceny in which a future of freedom which could have followed the collapse of feudalism was stolen from under our noses by a new bunch of bosses doing the same old things

Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure.

Capitalism does what it does and money doesn't belong to anybody. It just stays in someone's wallet for a while, then it goes somewhere else. It always goes somewhere and it is always about to go somewhere.

Complex regulation in place of simple-rules capitalism disrupts market processes and corrupts business incentives.

The idea was that those who direct the overall conspiracy could use the differences in those two so-called ideologies [Marxism/fascism/socialism v. democracy/capitalism] to enable them [the Illuminati] to divide larger and larger portions of the human race into opposing camps so that they could be armed and then brainwashed into fighting and destroying each other.

Creativity is the foundation of wealth. All progress comes from the creative minority. Under capitalism, wealth is less a stock of goods than a flow of ideas, the defining characteristic of which is surprise. If it were not surprising, we could plan it, and socialism would work.

That's what's happening now. The world is being held up a mirror: "All roads lead here. Do you like it?" A lot of people don't like it. A lot of people are saying, "Wait a minute, if our system can produce that, there's something wrong with this system." That opening is ours to seize. It matters how we name it: It's not called Donald Trump. It's called capitalism.

Violence, with its ever-present economy of uncertainty, fear, and terror, is no longer merely a side effect of police brutality, war, or criminal behavior. It has become fundamental to neoliberalism as a particularly savage facet of capitalism. And in doing so it has turned out to be central to legitimating those social relations in which the political and pedagogical are redefined in order to undercut possibilities for authentic democracy.

The challenge of our generation, whether it's young lawyers, young investment bankers, is to make capitalism work for people not just around the corner, but for people all around the world.

In modern capitalism economic exploitation rather than political oppression is the real enemy of the people.

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

When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.

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.

We preach free enterprise capitalism. We believe in it, we give our lives in war for it, but the closest most of us come to profiting from it are a few miserable shares of stock in a company that doesn't pay large enough dividends to keep a small mouse in cheese. The truth is, most of us are job serfs. At a time when invested capital returns 20 to 30 percent, we have no capital. We only have our wages and salaries, and a debt so high that something like 20c on every dollar we earn is spent to pay off what we owe.

People who have various kinds of politics for whom it is congenial for their apriority politics to say yes, things are getting much worse. They are opposed by people who also have a priori politics saying that this is the best of all possible worlds, capitalism is the greatest thing since sliced bread and you're just alarmists and so on and they can massage the data so it fits them.

What worries some people about consumption (and I confess at the outset to be one of these ambivalent creatures, fat but troubled in paradise) is that the affluent, technologically advanced West seems more and more focused not on consuming to live but living to consume. The problem with consumption, and the consumer capitalism that has pushed it to feverish historical extremes, is that it has become so all-consuming.

I don't like the idea of capitalism anyway. Because it's not capital we are talking about; it's knowledge and creating well-being. Because I mean, that gets people on the wrong track when it's capital and how we allocate capital - no. How do we create the Republic of Science in America? How do we have a system of mutual benefits where people succeed by helping others improve their lives? So I don't like that at all.

In the moral calculus of currently prevailing state capitalism, profits and bonuses in the next quarter greatly outweigh concern for the welfare of one’s grandchildren, and since these are institutional maladies, they will not be easy to overcome. While much remains uncertain, we can assure ourselves, with fair confidence, that future generations will not forgive us our silence and apathy.