Home / Quotes / Quote by William S. Burroughs

Quote by William S. Burroughs

“...Communism, it's a reactive formation derived from capitalism. For this reason it's less flexible and has a lower survival potential. The days of laissez-faire capitalism are completely dead, and the assumptions of nineteenth-century Communism are equally dead, because they were based on laissez-faire capitalism. While there's hardly a trace of it left in capitalist countries, Communism is still reacting to something that's been dead for over a hundred years. And present-day Communism clings to this outmoded concepts, refusing to acknowledge the contradictions and failures of the Marxist system. Communism doesn't have any capacity to change. Capitalism is flexible, and it's changing all the time, and it's changed immeasurably. Communism apparently are still asserting that they are not changing, they're following the same Marxist principles. We don't have any principles. It's an advantage.”

Author

William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs was an American novelist known for his unique writing style and his significant influence on postmodern literature. His works often involve social criticism, political satire, and surrealistic elements. more

“Beautiful, seamless upgrade from Twitter today, making functionality smoother and cooler. We didn't have to lobby, didn't have to beg, didn't have to elect a new leader, didn't have to push or protest. Progress is built in to the structure of the mechanism itself: this company exists to please you and me. This is a far better system than any political system on earth.”

Freedom Anarchy Free Market Voluntaryism Laissez Faire Laissez Faire Capitalism

Author:Jeffrey Tucker

“Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”

Writing Belief Imagination Writing Life

Book:The Writing Life

Source: The Writing Life

“It is easy to see, however,―as has been indicated more than once by anarchist writers, and lately by the French professor, V. Basch, in an interesting work, Anarchist Individualism: Max Stirner (1904, in French)―that this sort of individualism, aiming as it does at the "full development," not of all members of society, but of those only who would be considered as the most gifted ones, without caring for the right of full development for all―is merely a disguised return towards the now-existing education-monopoly of the few. It simply means a "right to their full development" for the privileged minorities. But, as such monopolies cannot be maintained otherwise than under the protection of a monopolist legislation and an organized coercion by the State, the claims of these individualists necessarily end in a return to the state idea and to that same coercion which they so fiercely attack themselves. Their position is thus the same as that of Spencer, and of all so-called "Manchester school" of economists, who also begin by a severe criticism of the State and end in its full recognition in order to maintain the property monopolies, of which the State is the necessary stronghold.”

Libertarian Libertarianism Laissez Faire Anarcho Capitalism Laissez Faire Capitalism Libertarian Capitalism

Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings

Source: Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings

“If there is much to be said for the virtues of the free market, for its role in encouraging hard work, innovation, and economic growth--and argument that seems nearly beyond dispute at this point--then it must also be acknowledged as equally indisputable that organizing an economic system around self-interest and competition tends to produce a multitude of so-called neighborhood effects. No one has yet to solve the conundrum of the ecological costs associated with economic growth without conceiving of some role of state intervention. Thus far, the notion that unrestrained capitalism can make the United States fabulously wealthy and save the planet too remains little more than a pipe dream.”