Quotes About Socialism

We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?

Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas. It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist.

Everything brought forward in favor of Socialism during the last hundred years, in thousands of writings and speeches, all the blood which has been spilt by the supporters of Socialism, cannot make socialism workable.

If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.... Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders.

The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there's no dictatorship here.

Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.

Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.

Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority ... a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State.

The problem of peaceful transition to socialism, we do not discuss it as a theoretical question. But in America it is very difficult, and it is nearly impossible. That is why specifically in America we say that the road to the liberation of peoples, which will be the road of socialism will go through bullets in almost all countries.

Socialism as I understand it is a system of democracy. Without democracy, there is no socialism.

The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization. The time has come to regenerate society - we are on the eve of universal change.

Socialism is like a dream. Sooner or later you wake up to reality.

Socialism, leftism, liberalism not only doesn't respect the unique abilities of free people; it attempts to quash them and to eliminate them. Because it's unfair not only to have more than somebody else, it's unfair to be better than anybody else at whatever you do. That's not fair. So we define everything down to the lowest common denominator. We take the people at the top, bring 'em down to people at the bottom and say that's equality. We punish achievement if liberalism and leftism rules the day. But capitalism is where the respect for unique abilities and freedom resides.

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Neither an ox nor a donkey is able to stop the progress of socialism.

Aggressors cannot wage total war without introducing Socialism.

In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated. And so for the last ten years, I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement.

Israel has the mentality of a small Kibbutz. Kibbutz is kind of like a small village that - actually there aren't many Kibbutz left in Israel - but it was something that was based on socialism and based on a principle that everyone is working for the Kibbutz and the Kibbutz is one.

I don't understand why it has to be either - or - either socialism or democracy. Why can't we combine things to get the best of each system?

In the past 20 years and more since China embarked on the road of reform and opening up, we have moved steadfastly to promote political restructuring and vigorously build democratic politics under socialism.

I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society.

I think Obama has redefined the Democratic Party. It used to be the party of acid, amnesty, and abortion, and now it's surrender, socialism, and subprime mortgages.

We're going to fight racism not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. We say we're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism.

Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit...

That democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who wish it would be prepared to accept the consequences, many will not believe until the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.

I find that socialism is often misunderstood by its least intelligent supporters and opponents to mean simply unrestrained indulgence of our natural propensity to heave bricks at respectable persons.

The worst of this ever growing cancer of Statism [ie big 'paternal' government - socialism, communism and fascism] is its moral effect. The country is rich enough to stand its frightful economic wastage for a long time yet, and still prosper, but it is already so poverty-stricken in its moral resources that the present drain will quickly run them out.

I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything.

Never will we be able to understand our times if we naively 'think' of this system of self Government as the work of a few gangsters or the creation of a pack of criminals we call a political party. The appeal of Socialism, Fascism and communism was principally negative; they were protests against a live and let live anything goes liberalism, a spineless indifference to causes, a failure to recognize that nothing was evil enough to hate, and nothing was good enough to die for.

Socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state.

Many understand "state socialism" in this way. Sometimes a system is concealed behind this term in which the capitalist state, in the interests of preparation for the conduct of war, takes upon itself the maintenance of a certain number of private enterprises.

Inherent to socialism is the absence of choice. If I want to choose my own pretzels or books or iphones, they prevent me - they fine me, or imprison me. And those systems, not infrequently have historically, have developed into systems where there are pogroms.

There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.

We are now moving towards complete collectivism or socialism, a system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody.

Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state.

In Europe, Socialism is just another political party. It just means that government takes over certain things like hospitals, prisons, military and schools that should not be run for profit.

Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion.

I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events.

One of the things I learned in 'Slavs!' is that it's much easier to talk about being gay than it is to talk about being a socialist. People are afraid of socialism, and plays that deal with economics are scarier to them.

The fundamental basis is this: Socialism requires that government becomes your God. That's why they have to destroy the concept of God. They have to destroy all loyalties except loyalty to the government.

There is this idea of history as something you make, as a meaningful narrative with a beginning and an end, the end being a utopia of happiness that we'll reach through socialism or free trade or democracy, and then it will all be wonderful.

Many years later, another Marxian rephrased this as the choice between socialism and barbarity. Which of these will prevail is a question which the twenty-first century must be left to answer.

We certainly hoped perestroika would win out and that there would be changes. We knew all along that socialism could flourish only with a certain amount of freedom and democracy.

In England the more horses a nobleman has, the more popular he is. So long as the English are devoted to racing, Socialism has no chance with you.

The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!

We are manipulated by fear and the fear of others, and how we're often manipulated into doing things and voting in ways that are against our own best interest. Look at healthcare. People will tell you that healthcare is socialism and communism, and they're doing this while their wife needs an operation and their kid needs braces.

The fascinating thing to a dispassionate observer about the structure of life in the Soviet Union is that in their efforts to produce an unknown that we may let its ideologists call Socialism the Communist dictators have produced a brutal approximation of monopoly Capitalism, a system that has all the disadvantages of our own, with none of the palliatives which come to us from surviving competition and from the essential division of economic and political power which has so far made it possible for the humane traditions of the Western world to continue.