“Resentment is at work when one so hates somebody for his more favorable circumstances that one is prepared to bear heavy losses if only the hated one might also come to harm. Many of those who attack capitalism know very well that their situation under any other economic system will be less favorable.” IfsKnowsWellsMightHateLossSituationEconomicBearsCircumstancesCapitalismPreparedHeavyHarmHatedResentmentEconomic Systems Book:The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism Source: The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism
“Think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.” ThinkingYearsStillsEndsWholeHandsTodayEarthSituationAcceptingIssuesImagineEasierCapitalismYears AgoWhole LifeDebateRadicalObsessedThirtyFortyParadoxCommunistCosmicCapitalistHittingModestCatastropheVirusesFascistsStrangenessAsteroidsRadical Change Author:Slavoj Žižek
“It is sort of a bit of a caricature of capitalism, that it's always this zero-sum game where you have winners and losers. Silicon Valley, the technology industry at its best, creates a situation where everybody can be a winner.” GamesBitsSituationTechnologyIndustryCapitalismWinnerZeroLoserValleysCaricaturesSiliconSilicon ValleyWinner And LoserZero Sum Game Author:Peter Thiel
“Capitalism has taught us that markets are always more efficient than hierarchical managerial coordination. But in a situation where those three conditions aren't met, I can't outsource or partner with you because markets don't function in the absence of sufficient information.” I CanThreeSituationConditionsInformationTaughtMetsCapitalismFunctionAbsencePartnersSufficientEfficientTaught UsCoordination Author:Clayton Christensen
“Capitalism has created a situation called scarcity. And that scarcity is not natural, it's socially induced. Along with that sense of scarcity, or feeling of scarcity, is a feeling of economic insecurity. Along with that is a feeling of deprivation... And unless we can demonstrate that that feeling is not justified technologically, we will not be able to speak intelligently to the great majority of people and reorganize our economy so that we really know what needs are rational and human and what have been created, almost fetishisticaly, by the capitalist economy.” PeopleKnowsNeedsHumansHas BeensFeelingsAbleSpeakNaturalSituationEconomyEconomicCapitalismMajorityRationalInsecurityCapitalistJustifiedScarcityDeprivationCapitalist Economy Author:Murray Bookchin
“The situation is that in Germany capitalism has remained, classes and class struggle have remained which all the same will break into the open, which includes also the field of struggle of parties representing opposing classes just as it broke through in, let us say, Spain.” PartySituationClassBreakStruggleFieldsCapitalismBrokeGermanySpainOpposingRepresentingClass Struggle Author:Joseph Stalin
“So far as Chairman Mao's own hopes were concerned, he initiated the "Cultural Revolution" in order to avert the restoration of capitalism, but he had made an erroneous assessment of China's actual situation. In the first place, the targets of the revolution were wrongly defined, which led to the effort to ferret out "capitalist roaders in power in the Party". Blows were dealt at leading cadres at all levels who had made contributions to the revolution and had practical experience, including Comrade Liu Shaoqi.” FirstsMadeOrderLevelsPartyEffortSituationRevolutionCapitalismConcernedIncludingBlowChinaPracticalsDefinedContributionTargetCapitalistChairmanRestorationAssessmentComradeMaoAvertFerretsChairman MaoCadrePractical Experience Author:Deng Xiaoping
“Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador lived through times of cruel and ruthless capitalism where the workers, the masses of the population, saw themselves living in a precarious state of employment and subsistence conditions. The impact of this reality took hold and impacted the evolution of the social situation of those countries and even though that produced movements that were not exactly political movements but social movements.” CountryStatesRealityPoliticalSocialSituationSawsConditionsMovementEvolutionMassCapitalismImpactWorkersPopulationEmploymentRuthlessRough TimesPrecariousVenezuelaSocial MovementsSubsistencePolitical MovementsBoliviaEcuador Author:Alejandro Castro Espin
“We can't change the fossil fuel companies' behavior in isolation from the rest of the industrial system. As long as they have customers, they're going to continue to operate, whether or not we divest of their stock. However, divesting might be helpful in terms of disrupting the story that what these companies do is perfectly okay. This situation differs from apartheid in a key regard though: racial equality in South Africa was no threat whatsoever to capitalism as we know it. Ending the fossil fuel era is a much deeper change.” LongTermSituationBehaviorCapitalismOkayThreatIsolationHelpfulSouth AfricaFossil FuelApartheid Author:Charles Eisenstein
“It's really interesting that we've had this great Tea Party movement that is all about restoring free market capitalist values, but what they completely fail to understand is that what we've got now is a situation where there is a small class of gigantic financial companies that have put themselves above capitalism.” ValuesInterestingPartyCompanySituationClassFailingMovementCapitalismFinancialTeaCapitalistFree MarketReally InterestingTea PartyRestoringTea Party Movement Author:Matt Taibbi
“The statement, "The debt problem has become so extreme that we have no choice but to cut social spending" is presented as an objective assessment of our situation. But can you imagine a media commentator making the following assertion? "The debt problem has become so extreme that we have no choice but to raise taxes on the rich."” ProblemChoicesSocialSituationRichCuttingImagineMediaTaxesCapitalismRaisesFollowingExtremesDebtSpendingStatementsObjectivesAssertionCommentatorsAssessment Author:Linda McQuaig
“After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game.” GamesBeliefSituationCapitalismFairsSocialismUnusualCollapseGreedySuicidalRivalsUnleashedFair Game Author:Gunter Grass
“For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny.” SituationClassCapitalismWeightWorkersTyrannyChainsReformSufficientCrushLabourWorking Class Author:Clara Zetkin
“The degeneration of the revolution in Russia does not pass from the revolution for communism to the revolution for a developed kind of capitalism, but to a pure capitalist revolution. It runs in parallel with world-wide capitalist domination which, by successive steps, eliminates old feudal and Asiatic forms in various zones. While the historical situation in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused the capitalist revolution to take liberal forms, in the twentieth century it must have totalitarian and bureaucratic ones.” WorldKindDoeRunningFormSituationStepsCenturyRevolutionPureCapitalismHistoricalVariousWideRussiaCommunismZoneCapitalistDominationParallelsTwentieth CenturyNineteenth CenturyDegeneration Author:Amadeo Bordiga