Home / Topics / Capitalism Quotes

Capitalism Quotes

Browse 2965 quotes about Capitalism.

Capitalism Quotes

“To be ignorant or unconvinced of one's own needs has become the unforgivable anti-social act. The good citizen is one who imputes standardized needs to himself with such conviction that he drowns out any desire for alternatives, much less the renunciation of need.”

Needs Desire Social Citizens Capitalism Conviction Ignorant Alternatives Renunciation Good Citizen Unforgivable Anti Social

Author:Ivan Illich

“Unrestricted laissez faire capitalism allocates resources in a most efficient way to satisfy human wants without regard to the rationality or morality of those desires.”

Way Want Humans Political Desire Politics Morality Capitalism Resources Regard Efficient Rationality Laissez Faire Laissez Faire Capitalism

Author:Jerry Pournelle

“Despite the miracles of capitalism, it doesn't do well in popularity polls. One of the reasons is that capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent, non-realizable utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system, when compared to a Utopia, will pale in comparison. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires.”

Needs Wells Persons Reason Desire Deals Ordinary Capitalism Miracle Everyday Socialism Superiors Despite Communism Comparison Pale Popularity Polls Utopia Ordinary Person Warts

Author:Walter E. Williams

“One of the popular views in the liberal circles of the West is that we are actually 'all victims of capitalism'. I disagree. This savage global capitalism is only one of the most terrible bi-products of the dominant Western culture of racism, greed, brutality and unbridled desire to control the world.”

World Desire Culture Views Products Terrible Racism Capitalism Victim West Western Greed Circles Disagree Savages Dominant Brutality Western Culture

Author:Andre Vltchek

“It was only in the late nineteenth century and then the twentieth century, with the maturation of consumer capitalism, that a shift was made toward the cultivation of unbounded desire. We must appreciate this to realize that late modern consumption, consumption as we now know it, is not fundamentally about materialism or the consumption of physical goods. Affluence and consumer-oriented capitalism have moved us well beyond the undeniable efficiencies and benefits of refrigeration and indoor plumbing.”

“Speaking as a New Yorker, I found it a shocking and terrifying event [9/11], particularly the scale of it. At bottom, it was an implacable desire to do harm to innocent people. It was aimed at symbols: the World Trade Center, the heart of American capitalism, and the Pentagon, the headquarters of the American military establishment.”

“A person without an Apple watch is perfectly content with his present watch but when he sees his friends buying the watch, he will hanker for an Apple watch. The endless cycle of wanting, getting, and wanting again is part of the plot of Capitalism. It is the way Capitalism creates jobs. The only antidote is Buddhism that holds that people might be happier by renouncing desire rather than by striving to satisfy desire. But then how can the economy create enough jobs in a Buddhist society of "less is more."”

People Way Persons Enough Might Jobs Desire Watches Economy Buddhism Capitalism Strive Endless Buddhist Apples Buying Plot Cycles Antidote Less Is More Apple Watch

Author:Philip Kotler

“We live in an era of consumerism and it's all about desire - based consumerism and it has nothing to do with things we actually need. What do you actually need? Food, clothing and shelter. Everything else is entertainment. It's just the idea that we're so wasteful. I think a lot of self - identity and inner - personal development is hampered by consumerism and capitalism because we see ourselves as a reflection of the TV, rather than as a reflection of the people who are around us, truly.”

People Thinking Desire Identity Reflection Capitalism Personal Development Consumerism

Author:Aloe Blacc

“The most powerful single force in the world today is neither Communism nor Capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile -- it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent.”

Men World Today Desire Force Freedom Powerful Liberty Eternal Capitalism Independent Communism Bombs Most Powerful World Today Missiles

Author:John F. Kennedy

“The desire for an increase of wealth can be satisfied through exchange, which is the only method possible in a capitalist economy, or by violence and petition as in a militarist society, where the strong acquire by force, the weak by petitioning.”

Desire Strong Force Wealth Economy Violence Capitalism Weak Increase Method Satisfied Socialism Acquire Capitalist Petitions Capitalist Economy

Book:Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist

Source: Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist

“Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man's well-being is not their goal.”

Source: Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

“The ever-mounting glut of waste materials is characteristic by-product of modern consumer society. It might even be argued that capitalism's continual need to find of generate markets means that disposibility and waste have become the spine of the system. To consume means, literally, to destroy or expend, and in the garbage crisis we confront the underlying truth of a society in which enormous productive capacities and market forces have harnessed human needs and desires, without regard to the long or even short-term future of life on the planet.”

Source: All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture

“Most people want more than they have without having made the most of what they have.”

Philosophy Happiness Desire Spirituality Capitalism Materialism Pessimism Stoicism The Pursuit Of Happiness Make The Best Of What You Have

Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Living as a slave to unchecked personal desire and subjugated to external circumstances is wearisome. It is a common error to devote a person’s life to earning money. While money relives us from the stress of suffering from deprivation, moneymaking will not make us happy. A person must have passion in life in order to achieve any degree of personal bliss.”

Desire Capitalism Capitalist Consumption Consumerism Consumer Culture Moneymaking Consumerist

Book:Dead Toad Scrolls

Source: Dead Toad Scrolls

“Are we, intellectual sirs, not actively or passively 'producing' more and more words, more books, more articles, ceaselessly refilling the pot-boiler of speech, gorging ourselves on it rather, seizing books and 'experiences', to metamorphose them as quickly as possible into other words, plugging us in here, being plugged in there, just like Mina on her blue squared oilcloth, extending the market and the trade in words of course, but also multiplying the chances of jouissance, scraping up intensities wherever possible, and never being sufficiently dead, for we too are required to go from forty to the hundred a day, and we will never play the whore enough, we will never be dead enough”

Death Desire Knowledge Capitalism Intensity Nihilism Production Exchange Libidinal Economy Intensities

Book:Libidinal Economy

Source: Libidinal Economy