Popular quotes about Capitalism! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 31
All existing art was religious until perhaps a hundred years ago. Within that there's obviously been lots of room for manipulation. I think that's because our current religion is capitalism. Capitalism has the functions of patronage, commissions, control of content, bestowing of space, elevation of certain artists over others based on how much they pander to people in power, the determination of value of the work, all of it. Capitalism commissions artwork now, the market.
Chitra GaneshI know the difference between venture capital[ism] and vulture capitalism. Venture capitalism is a good thing, comes in, gives that gap funding to help these companies get off and get started creating jobs, and work. But Mitt Romney and Bain Capital were involved with what I call vulture capitalism. And they walked into Gaffney and took over that photo album company for no other reason than to basically pick the bones clean. And those people lost their jobs.
Rick PerryCapitalism 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.
Thomas DiLorenzoCapitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice. When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church.
Ayn RandDemocratic capitalism: A cooperative enterprise to earn enough money to buy enough Congressional influence to gain control over the government's guns so as to get even more money for your special-interest group.Social democratic capitalism: A cooperative enterprise to promise sufficient government benefits to enough voters to gain control over the government's guns so as to keep any other special-interest group from getting as much power as yours.
Gary NorthCapitalismโs real โgrave-diggersโ may end up being its own delusional Cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. Despite their strategic brilliance, they seem to have trouble grasping a simple fact: Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises-War and Shopping-simply will not work.
Arundhati RoyLaissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism, is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire capitalism encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value. It recognizes charity and communal enterprises as voluntary versions of this same ethic. Such a system would be straight barter, except for the widely felt need for a division of labor in which men, voluntarily, accept value tokens such as cash and credit. Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so.
Karl HessAll the talk about the so-called unspeakable horror of early capitalism can be refuted by a single statistic: precisely in these years in which British capitalism developed, precisely in the age called the Industrial Revolution in England, in the years from 1760 to 1830, precisely in those years the population of England doubled.
Ludwig von MisesLets embrace productive capitalism, not casino capitalism, by restoring transparency and true competition in the commodities markets.
Maria CantwellIn the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.
Fran LebowitzTo speak of โlimits to growthโ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be โpersuadedโ to limit growth than a human being can be โpersuadedโ to stop breathing. Attempts to โgreenโ capitalism, to make it โecologicalโ, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.
Murray BookchinEurope is not managing its capitalism very well, it is not a good advertisement of capitalism
Jack GoldstoneTo paraphrase Karl Marx, the great Karl Marx, a specter is haunting the streets of Copenhagen...Capitalism is the specter, almost nobody wants to mention it...Socialism, the other specter Karl Marx spoke about, which walks here too, rather it is like a counter-specter. Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet, I don't have the least doubt. Capitalism is the road to hell, to the destruction of the world.
Hugo ChavezInstead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich America on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.
Star ParkerCapitalism is a development by refinement from feudalism, just as feudalism is development by refinement from slavery . Capitalism is but the gentlemen's method of slavery.
Kwame NkrumahThe main argument is that capitalism is constituted by a varied of different practices, and so challenging capitalism needs to be about a variety of struggles. I draw on the important work of J.K. Gibson-Graham, who argues that we should model anti-capitalist struggle on feminist struggles.
Cynthia KauffmanJust as feudalism was an advance over slavery, and capitalism was the next step after feudalism, socialism is the next step after capitalism...........Socialism in America will come through the ballot box.
Gus HallWell, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you're just going to keep buying and selling things until there's nothing else to buy and sell, which means gobbling up the planet.
Alice WalkerImperialism, in a sense, is the transition stage from capitalism to Socialism. . . . It is capitalism dying, not dead.
Vladimir LeninBasically, global capitalism, basically to support it, or is it to be opposed? Is international order to be supported, or is it to be opposed? Republicans have taken a very clear line. 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.
David BrooksIf capitalism worked as the socialists think an economic system ought to work, and provided a constant equality of living conditions for all, regardless of whether a man was able or not, resourceful or not, diligent or not, thrifty or not, if capitalism put no premiums on resourcefulness and effort and not penalty on idleness or vice, it would produce only an equality of destitution.
Milton FriedmanI'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it.
Thomas FriedmanFor nearly two centuries, scholars and politicians have debated the future of capitalism. Its critics, most prominent among them Karl Marx, have seen capitalism as intrinsically unstable, full of contradictions that will lead eventually to its collapse. Its supporters see it as the best way to allocate resources and rewards. Some even hint that the democratic capitalistic society is not just a phase in the historical evolution of economic systems but its ultimate end.
Raghuram RajanTruth is not to be found either in traditional capitalism or in Marxism. Each represents a partial truth. Historically, capitalism failed to discern the truth in collective enterprise and Marxism failed to see the truth in individual enterprise.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.
Richard StallmanTo have good farming or good land use of any kind, you have got to have limits. Capitalism doesn't acknowledge limits.
Wendell BerryCompetition-ruthless, unforgiving, to-the-death competition-is a crucial feature of capitalism.
Jim StanfordI do fear that global capitalism is making us more like each other in regrettable ways, e.g., more people are increasingly captivated by spectacles of violence and aggression or of conspicuous consumption that are the subjects of the most commercially viable films across countries precisely because they don't depend for their appeal on cultural fine points; and more people are prone to deal with others on a purely instrumental and impersonal basis.
David WongThe 21st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.
Tony BlairWe have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country, or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia.
Bill MoyersIn 2003, Helmut Schmidt said: Predatory capitalism exists, we have to civilize it and we can do that via Europe. He was right. We haven't tried hard enough.
Martin SchulzA new model of heroic capitalism based on principle-driven, free-market entrepreneurship deserves a central place in business-ethics thought and action.
Robert L. Bradley, Jr.Capitalism is the greatest system ever created for alleviating general human misery, and yet it breeds ingratitude.
Jonah GoldbergOne of our great strength, world capitalism, is the most successful economic system possible, but has also become one of shorter and shorter cycles of evaluation. CEOs, companies, stocks, profits and debits change at an ever more accelerated pace in response to the demands of stockholders and the market. We have already experienced some consequences of the shortening cycle of decision making in business, but those are minor in relation to the grand systemic collapse that always eventually results from such accelerating and shortening periods for leadership goals.
Arthur DemarestComplex regulation in place of simple-rules capitalism disrupts market processes and corrupts business incentives.
Robert L. Bradley, Jr.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.
Michael MooreThroughout their lives, women try to pummel their bodies into some phantom ideal shape that exists only with a lot of airbrushing. ... I don't blame men for this. Men seem to go for us no matter what size and shape we are. I blame capitalism. No, really. The consumer must constantly be in a state of anxious low self-esteem so that she will constantly buy lipsticks and girdles to make her feel cuter.
Cynthia HeimelCapitalismโs grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecologyโs 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.
Ursula K. Le GuinPeople 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.
Richard LewontinCapitalism, though it may not always give the scientific worker a living wage, will always protect him, as being one of the geese which produce golden eggs for its table.
John B. S. HaldaneCritics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but for the most part it's the other way around: companies must make what consumers want and deliver it at the lowest possible price.
James SurowieckiMaybe it's the Calvinist guilt about capitalism or mercantilism. But, I like the idea of doing things that only exist for as long as they exist, which are not archives, which are not sold or prepared even. It's funny though, because a lot of my unreliable tours were inspired by the docents at the Japan Society, who are mostly these volunteers from the Upper East Side. They basically find positive messages in really nihilist, perverse videos. So they were my inspiration.
MomusWhen 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.
Thomas Piketty