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Capitalism Quotes

Browse 2965 quotes about Capitalism.

Capitalism Quotes

“To believe that the intolerable crime is to burn a few cars and rob some shops, whereas to kill a young man is trivial, is typically in keeping with what Marx regarded as the principal alienation of capitalism: the primacy of things over existence, of commodities over life and machines over workers”

Men Believe Young Existence Car Crime Capitalism Machines Workers Young Man Shops Principal Commodity Alienation Primacy

Book:The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings

Source: The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings

“The social relations of capitalism have penetrated slowly into all spheres of life to make wage labour the general condition of existence only in fairly recent times.”

Social Existence Conditions Capitalism Relation Labour Spheres Social Relations

Author:David Harvey

“One of the glaring failures of capitalism is the continuing widespread existence of poverty - often extreme poverty. Even in the advanced economies, many millions of people endure terrible economic and social deprivation, despite the incredible wealth all around them.”

People Social Wealth Existence Poverty Millions Economy Economic Terrible Capitalism Endure Incredibles Extremes Despite Continuing Deprivation Extreme Poverty

Book:Economics for everyone: a short guide to the economics of capitalism

Source: Economics for everyone: a short guide to the economics of capitalism

“Capitalism cannot be reduced to one or a few features, but it does possess one relationship, central to its existence and operation, that constitutes the essence of inequality and ineradicable instability: the wage-labor-capital connection that dwells at the heart of the system.”

Heart Doe Existence Capitalism Labor Connections Essence Inequality Features Operations Instability

Author:Herbert Schiller

“Wherever the Industrial system has reached its second generation it is threatened by two mortal perils. The first is the demand by an organized proletariat for sustenance without relation to the product of its labor; a demand which threatens the very existence of PROFIT (on the necessary presumption of which Capitalism reposes). The second, and immediately graver danger is that of a revolt for the confiscation of the means of production.”

“If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants - you maybe sure that whatever their motives, love of man is not one of them.”

Ifs Men Should Has Beens Lasts Existence Struggle Honest Capitalism Should Have Humanitarian Motive Should Have Been Remnants

Author:Ayn Rand

“The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist party that gives delocalised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation.”

Giving Self Today Party Existence Rights Depends Capitalism Organization Workers Chinese Enterprise Labour Communist Capitalist Domination Communist Party

Author:Jacques Ranciere

“Capitalism is going to deal itself out of existence, but before it does that, you're gonna pay $50 for a latte, because inflation is going impoverish all of us before people get pissed off enough to realize that all of the last hundred years of economic progress was actually a shell game to create billionaires, while the great masses of people saw their standard of living eroded and destroyed.”

“Here's what I do believe very strongly: that once capitalism comes into existence, once it creates this mythology of a stingy nature, then that myth has to be exorcised. In other words, we have to get out of people's heads the idea that without a market economy, without egotism, competition, rivalry and self-interest, without all the technological advances that [Karl] Marx imputed to capitalism, we have to eliminate the feeling that we would sink into some kind of barbarism.”

“The vitrines and shelves that I make, the objects displayed can be easily exchanged. This is a key to the work-the objects are mere signs of capitalism. The reason for their existence is in anticipation of their own destruction. They are meant to trigger a resemblance to the way store windows appear just before they are smashed by demonstrators. They represent targets for potential violence.”

Reason Existence Violence Capitalism Window Destruction Anticipation Resemblance

Author:Josephine Meckseper

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

“... just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing.”

Culture Existence Focus Capitalism Moved Posts Appearing

Author:Guy Debord

“The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.”

Needs Doe Government Courses Games Existence Essentials Capitalism Decided Contrary Free Market Umpires Forums Rules Of The Game Free Market Capitalism

Author:Milton Friedman

“Prior to the advent of the civilization of the Third Estate (mercantilism, capitalism), the social ethics that was religiously sanctioned in the West consisted in realizing one’s being and in achieving one’s own perfection within the fixed parameters that one’s individual nature and the group to which one belonged clearly defined. Economic activity, work, and profit were justified only in the measure in which they were necessary for sustenance and to ensure the dignity of an existence conformed to one’s own estate, without the lower instinct of self-interest or profit coming first.”