Home / Quotes / Quote by Arundhati Roy

Quote by Arundhati Roy

“We often confuse or loosely use the ideas of crony capitalism or neoliberalism to actually avoid using the word "capitalism", but once you've actually seen, let's say, what's happening in India and the United States - that this model of US economics packaged in a carton that says "democracy" is being forced on countries all over the world, militarily if necessary, has in the United States itself resulted in 400 of the richest people owning wealth equivalent [to that] of half of the population.”

Quote by Arundhati Roy

Author

Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her novel 'The God of Small Things', which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Her works often explore social and political issues such as class, race, and gender. more

You May Also Like

“Thousands are losing their jobs and homes, while corporations are being bailed out with billions of dollars.”

Home Jobs Losing Dollars Billions Corporations

Author:Arundhati Roy

“In India, 100 of the richest people own assets worth 25% of the gross domestic product. There's something terribly wrong. No individual and no corporation should be allowed to amass that kind of unlimited wealth, including bestselling writers like myself, who are showered with royalties.”

People Should Kind Individual Wealth Products India Including Corporations Assets Unlimited Gross Royalty Gross Domestic Product

Author:Arundhati Roy

“Money need not be our only reward.”

Author:Arundhati Roy

“Corporations that are turning over these huge profits can own everything: the media, the universities, the mines, the weapons industry, insurance hospitals, drug companies, non-governmental organisations. They can buy judges, journalists, politicians, publishing houses, television stations, bookshops and even activists. This kind of monopoly, this cross-ownership of businesses, has to stop.”

“The whole privatisation of health and education, of natural resources and essential infrastructure - all of this is so twisted and so antithetical to anything that would place the interests of human beings or the environment at the center of what ought to be a government concern - should stop. The amassing of unfettered wealth of individuals and corporations should stop. The inheritance of rich people's wealth by their children should stop. The expropriators should have their wealth expropriated and redistributed.”

“In the forests of central India and in many, many rural areas, a huge battle is being waged. Millions of people are being driven off their lands by mining companies, by dams, by infrastructure companies, and a huge battle is being waged. These are not people who have been co-opted into consumer culture, into the western notions of civilisation and progress. They are fighting for their lands and their livelihoods, refusing to be looted so that someone somewhere far away may "progress" at their cost.”

“India has millions of internally displaced people. And now, they are putting their bodies on the line and fighting back. They are being killed and imprisoned in their thousands. Theirs is a battle of the imagination, a battle for the redefinition of the meaning of civilisation, of the meaning of happiness, of the meaning of fulfilment.”

People Body Fighting Imagination Lines Millions Battle India Civilisation Fulfilment Fighting Back

Author:Arundhati Roy

“At some stage, as the water tables are dropping and the minerals that remain in the mountains are being taken out, we are going to confront a crisis from which we cannot return. The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.”

People Firsts Water Taken Stage Return Mountain Solutions Crisis Tables Come Up Dropping Minerals

Author:Arundhati Roy

“We must pay close attention to those with another imagination: an imagination outside of capitalism, as well as communism. We will soon have to admit that those people, like the millions of indigenous people fighting to prevent the takeover of their lands and the destruction of their environment - the people who still know the secrets of sustainable living - are not relics of the past, but the guides to our future.”

“In India, the poverty is so vast that the state cannot control it. It can beat people, but it can't prevent the poor from flooding the roads, the cities, the parks and railway station platforms.”

People States Poor Cities Poverty Beats India Parks Stations Platforms Railway Flooding Railway Station

Author:Arundhati Roy