Quotes about Socialism

Capitalism will always survive, because socialism will be there to save it.

What pushes the masses into the camp of socialism is, even more than the illusion that socialism will make them richer, the expectation that it will curb all those who are better than they themselves are.

The main characteristic of collectivism is that it does not take notice of the individual’s will and moral self-determination. In the light of its philosophy the individual is born into a collective and it is “natural” and proper for him to behave as members of this collective are expected to behave. Expected by whom? Of course, by those individuals to whom, by the mysterious decrees of some mysterious agency, the task of determining the collective will and directing the actions of the collective has been entrusted.

It is a double-edged makeshift to entrust an individual or a group of individuals with the authority to resort to violence. The enticement implied is too tempting for a human being. The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty. The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek πá½¹λις [city-state] down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.

Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. 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. It's not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!

So long as we admit that the property of individuals lies at the mercy of the largest number of votes, we are intellectually and morally committed to state socialism.

When we truly discover love, capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.

”We're all afloat in a boundless sea, and the way we cope is by massing together in groups and pretending in unison that the situation is other than it is.  We reinforce the illusion for each other.  That's what a society really is, a little band of humanity huddled together against the specter of a pitch black sea.  Everyone is treading water to keep their heads above the surface even though they have no reason to believe that the life they're preserving is better than the alternative they're avoiding.  It's just that one is known and one is not.  Fear of the unknown is what keeps everyone busily treading water.  All fear is fear of the unknown.  If someone in such a group of water-treaders betrays the group lie by speaking the truth of their situation, that person is called a heretic, and society reserves its most awful punishments for heretics.  If someone decides to stop struggling and just sink or float away, every possible effort is made to stop him, not for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the group.  To deny at all costs the truth of the situation.”

--Jed McKenna

Socialism in Russia has not brought about an improvement in the conditions of the average man which can be compared with the improvement of conditions, during the same period, in the United States.

The socialist system, however, forbids this fundamental freedom to choose one's own career. Under socialist conditions, there is only one economic authority, and it has the right to determine all matters concerning production.

The socialist system, however, forbids this fundamental freedom to choose one's own career. Under socialist conditions, there is only one economic authority, and it has the right to determine all matters concerning production.

The left needs a new paradigm. The collapse of communism and the abandonment by democratic socialists parties of the traditional socialist objective of national ownership of the means of production have deprived the left of the goals it cherished over the two centuries in which it formed and grew to a position of great political power and intellectual influence. But that is not the only reason why the left needs a new paradigm. The trade union movement has been the powerhouse and the treasury of the left in many countries. What capitalists failed to accomplish by a century of repressive measures against trade union leaders, the World Trade Organization, enthusiastically endorsed by social democrat government around the world, is doing for them. When barriers to imports are removed, nationally based trade unions are undermined.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

It is a socialist ideal that making profits is a vice. I consider the real vice is making losses.

What is a socialist? One who has yearnings To share equal profits from unequal earnings.

Less Government When you look at our vast government and the hundreds of billions of dollars it costs, it's hard to find success, but easy to find the harm that others have caused. There just aren't many agencies that are really indispensable to the nation's security and well-being those should be keept and the fat should be trimmed. It's honorable to attempt to reduce pain, suffering, and poverty. But it is not realistic to expect that every citizen can be provided the same amounts of good food, comfortable housing, and health care. It is up to the individual to do work. In short Liberalism, socialism, and utopianism are a dead end, just look at the former Soviet Union. If you like their system, maybe you should move there.

Imperialism, in a sense, is the transition stage from capitalism to Socialism. . . . It is capitalism dying, not dead.

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of opinion - how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

Companion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.

Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.

France could have all the socialism its capitalistic economy could support.

...the myth of socialism is far stronger than the reality of capitalism. That is because capitalism is not really an ism at all. It is what people do if you leave them alone.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.