quotations about socialism
Any fresh survey of men's political actions shows that, in those who have enough energy to be politically effective, love of power is a stronger motive than economic self-interest. Love of power actuates the great millionaires, who have far more money than they can spend, but continue to amass wealth merely in order to control more and more of the world's finance. Love of power is obviously the ruling motive of many politicians. It is also the chief cause of wars, which are admittedly almost always a bad speculation from the mere point of view of wealth. For this reason, a new economic system which merely attacks economic motives and does not interfere with the concentration of power is not likely to effect any very great improvement in the world. This is one of the chief reasons for regarding state socialism with suspicion.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"Pitfalls of Socialism", Political Ideals
Real socialism is inside man. It wasn't born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can't say it is finished.
DARIO FO
London Times, April 6, 1992
The supreme principle of socialism is that man takes precedence over things, life over property, and hence, work over capital; that power follows creation, and not possession; that man must not be governed by circumstances, but circumstances must be governed by man.
ERICH FROMM
On Disobedience: Why Freedom Means Saying No to Power
In seeking greater justice and equality in economic conditions, Socialism rests on a strong moral basis; but in seeking no more than greater material ease and comfort, it betrays the presence of mortality.
FRANKLIN VERZELIUS NEWTON PAINTER
attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism
But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing towards a madhouse, one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried Individualism and found it nasty.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Alarms and Discursions
If socialism is a nonentity in the experiencing world, then what is it in reality? I have argued that in the experiencing world, what was set up was not socialism but statism. Statism is a fact whereas socialism is a faith or a belief. Reality and ideal enter into conflict with each other. This conflict was most evident in Maoist China. Maoism had a commitment to ideal (socialism), unwilling to bow to the fact of statism. The Cultural Revolution is in essence a conflict between statism as a fact and socialism as a faith.
HENRY WANG
Socialism and Governance: A Comparison Between Maoist and Dengist Governance
The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
JOHN ADAMS
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government
If Socialism is a legitimate form of government, why have not the forces of government evolved it? The age of experiment has long since passed. We have had repetition over and over again, but no materialization of Socialism. Government is purely human, and until there is a new creation there will never be anything new in government.
JOHN CALHOUN TUTT
attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism
Socialism can only arrive by bicycle.
JOSE ANTONIO VIERA GALLO
foreword, Energy and Equity
Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.
LEN DEIGHTON
Funeral in Berlin
Either this organisation of injustice with its entire machine of oppressive laws and privileged institutions, must disappear, or else the proletariat is condemned to eternal slavery. This is the quintessence of the Socialist idea, whose germs can be found in the instinct of every serious thinking worker.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
The Policy of the Internationl: to which is added an essay on "The Two Camps"
Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
Daily Telegraph, June 16, 1992
The basic problem I really have is that whenever I meet leftists in the socialist and Marxist movements, I'm called a petit-bourgeois individualist. I'm supposed to shrink after this. Usually I'm called petit-bourgeois individualist by students, and by academicians, who've never done a days work life [sic] in their entire biography, whereas I have spent years in factories and the trade unions, in foundries and auto plants. So after I have to swallow the word petit-bourgeois, I don't mind the word individualist at all!
MURRAY BOOKCHIN
attributed, Anarchism in America
Tell me this, if socialism actually is implemented, what do you expect to get, what is going to happen, are you going to get money, a house, a car, what do you hope for? Or are you simply hoping that the rich will be brought down to the level of the poor?
NO OHNO
"A Reply to: Capitalism has failed the world: Socialism is the viable alternative", News24, August 10, 2017
Socialism accepts... the principles, which are the cornerstones of democracy, that authority to justify its title , must rest on consent; that power is tolerable only so far as it is accountable to the public; and that differences of character and capacity between human beings, however important on their own plane, are of minor importance when compared with the capital fact of their common humanity. Its object is to extend the application of those principles from the sphere of civil and political rights, where, at present, they are nominally recognized, to that of economic and social organization, where they are systematically and insolently defined.
R. H. TAWNEY
Equality
The whole problem with Communism and Socialism is summed up in this old Polish proverb: "If I lie down , I get 1000 kopeks a month. If I stand up I get 1000 kopeks a month. Why stand up?"
REVELGEN
"A reply to Tiietso Makhele -- in reality, Socialism is a dead duck in SA", News24, August 10, 2017
In essence, socialism is a system in which others are forced to pay your bills no matter how irresponsible you may be.
RICHARD W. RAHN
"The Insurance Compulsion", Washington Times, August 7, 2017
Socialism is in a way the shadow of capitalism. Nothing guarantees the future of socialism so much as capitalism, because socialism is capitalism's self-criticism.
RICHARD WOLFF
interview, Fox Business, August 2017
Socialism is also unselfishness embraced as an axiom.
ROGER KIMBALL
The New Criterion
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
RONALD WRIGHT
America & Americans