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“In more advanced countries, such as the Czech Republic and Estonia, state socialism led to a steadily increasing lag behind neighbouring countries such as Austria and Finland.”

Quote by Michael Ellman

Book:Socialist Planning
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Socialist Planning

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Michael Ellman

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“Together with all this there was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly lit for fear of air — raids, the shops were mostly shabby and half-empty. Meat was scarce and milk practically unobtainable, there was a shortage of coal, sugar, and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues were often hundreds of yards long. Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gipsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.”

CapitalismSocialismAnarchismSpanish Civil WarRevolutionary Catalonia
Book:Homage to Catalonia
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“I mean, contrary to the contemporary version of it, classical liberalism (which remember was pre-capitalist, and in fact, anti-capitalist) focused on the right of people to control their own work, and the need for free creative work under your own control—for human freedom and creativity. So to a classical liberal, wage labor under capitalism would have been considered totally immoral, because it frustrates the fundamental need of people to control their own work: you're a slave to someone else.”

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Book:Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
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“The liberal ideals of the Enlightenment could be realized only in very partial and limited ways in the emerging capitalist order: "Democracy with its mono of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economy," Rocker correctly observed. Those who are compelled to rent themselves to owners of capital in order to survive are deprived of one of the most fundamental rights: the right to productive, creative and fulfilling work under one's own control, in solidarity with others. And under the ideological constraints of capitalist democracy, the prime necessity is to satisfy the needs of those in a position to make investment decisions; if their demands are not satisfied, there will be no production, no work, no social services, no means for survival. All necessarily subordinate themselves and their interests to the overriding need to serve the interests of the owners and managers of the society, who, furthermore, with their control over resources, are easily able to shape the ideological system (the media, schools, universities and so on) in their interests, to determine the basic conditions within which the political process will function, its parameters and basic agenda, and to call upon the resources of state violence, when need be, to suppress any challenge to entrenched power. The point was formulated succinctly in the early days of the liberal democratic revolutions by John Jay, the President of the Continental Congress and the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court: "The people who own the country ought to govern it." And, of course, they do, whatever political faction may be in power. Matters could hardly be otherwise when economic power is narrowly concentrated and the basic decisions over the nature and character of life, the investment decisions, are in principle removed from democratic control.”

FreedomLibertyCapitalismLiberalismIndoctrinationLiberalLiberalsClassical LiberalismClassical Liberal
Book:Chomsky On Anarchism
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“»Seht! Dort ist der Schöne!« »Eure Hoheit!« »Schaut hierher, Eure Durchlaucht!« Emanio unterdrückte ein Augenrollen. Er wünschte sich, sie würden aufhören, ihn den Schönen zu nennen, doch er hatte mit seinen Bitten, dies zu unterlassen, nur kurzzeitig Erfolg gehabt. Winkend schenkte er den Bewohnern von Rius ein leichtes Lächeln und ein lautes Kreischen antwortete ihm, als die Menschen nun auf die Kutsche zu drängten.”

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Book:Emanio - Der Schöne und das Biest
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