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Quote by Lailah Gifty Akita

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Lailah Gifty Akita

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“There is a question asked frequently: which way of life is better, to secure food despite living in an authoritarian regime or to choose a democratic regime despite living hungry in it? No tyrant commits the mistake of feeding his slaves. Actually, the tyrant has already set up a such system of governance that, whatever the citizen does benefits him first. The system ensures that the citizen can never consume more than he has mercy on.”

FreedomPovertyDemocracyRacismTyrannyGenocideFascismHolocaust
Author:Jeyhun Aliyev Silo
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“Enclosures have appropriately been called a revolution of the rich is against the poor. The lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down ancient law and custom, sometimes by means of violence, often by pressure and intimidation. They were literally robbing the poor of their share in the common, tearing down the houses which, by the hitherto unbreakable force of custom, the poor had long regarded as theirs and their heirs'. The fabric of society was being disrupted; desolate villages and the ruins of human dwellings testified to the fierceness with which the revolution raged, endangering the defenses of the country, wasting its towns, decimating its population, turning its overburdened soil into dust, harassing its people and turning them from decent husbandmen into a mob of beggars and thieves.”

PovertyEnclosures
Book:The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
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“Perhaps to them and their peers their ecological consciousness is a bigger sign of prestige than a fur coat. Perhaps they feel on more equal terms with the world. I admit I saw the future in them. But they were aggressive and I didn't like it, in spite of their concern for animals. On the other hand, perhaps they are too young to understand that human beings are an endangered species and that they too have a right to protection - particularly in some parts of the world. I hope they learn this soon.”

LeftPovertyCommunismAnimal RightsEcologyFurLeftistsProgressivesEndangered SpeciesEcology And Capitalism
Book:How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
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“It was hard to force people to give up their rights to apartments, and predictably, this radical Utopian ideal failed. But it does illustrate how the concept of social injustice in a communist society works: those who have are exceptions, and they should feel guilty and ashamed - the others are entitled to have, too, because it has been promised to them.”

PovertyInjusticeSocialismInequalityRadicalCommunismSharingHousingUtopianApartments
Book:Café Europa: Life After Communism
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“Even at his age he knew that there are basically two categories of people in a society: those who have, and those who have not. But according to the egalitarian principles of any communist society, those 'haves' should share with the 'have nots.' And because there is not much to share anyway, in the end that egalitarianism boils down to the equal distribution of poverty.”

PovertySocialismCommunismSharingDistribution Of WealthEgalitarian
Book:Café Europa: Life After Communism
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“These people are fully in exile. They have not received anything from modern India. This metal road has come to them to serve the interests of those very moneylenders from Bhalpura and Rajaura who will snatch their harvests to recover their loans, those patient customers who wait like vultures for the moment when starving parents will sell their children in the extremity of despair, and fall to feeding on carrion, the advance men of those labor contractors who will make the aboriginals their bond slaves with the seduction of 'ten rupees a day and a full stomach.' Modern India only gives them posters for family planning. The birth of children increases rather than decreases as a result of starvation, until the bodies of the man and the woman go on strike permanently.”

PovertyDevelopmentIndigeneity
Book:Imaginary Maps
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