Quotessence
Home / Topics / Capitalism Quotes

Capitalism Quotes

Browse 2965 quotes about Capitalism.

Related topics

PeopleIfsSocialismWorldEconomicThinkingWayMenEconomyPoliticalGovernmentHumansDemocracySocialStatesCommunismHas BeensMeanFree MarketCountryNeedsEconomicsWantTodayBelieveFormWealthForceProblemGivingIndividualLibertyShouldWellsProfitAmericaKnowsIdeasPoliticsKindInterestWarDoeValuesMayLongTwoCenturyClassModernPoorProductionsSocialistTermAmerican CapitalismEnterpriseFactsRichEndsMoralConsumersMadeRunningYearsCommunistCultureSelfCompetitionDifferentHistoricalRevolutionWholeBusinessGreedHandsLooksOrderRealStillsCrisisDemocraticDevelopmentFightingFree Market CapitalismFirstsLeftProcessSeemsEconomic SystemsFacesPartyPovertyPracticeProduceRacismBigsConditionsCorporationsEvilLabourmore

Capitalism Quotes

“This is the standard procedure for corporate growth these days; one company buys up another on loans that are floated on the basis of future earnings, and the monopoly or oligopoly created in this way produces the necessary funds by squeezing out competition, and passing the costs along to the consumer. The bucket that holds the new wealth is called a corporation.”

WayGrowthWealthCompanyProduceCostStandardsCapitalismBasesCompetitionPassingPassingsConsumersCorporateThese DaysCorporationsFundEarningLoanMonopolyProceduresBucketsSqueezingOligopoly
Author:Eric Kierans
Create image

“Many pioneers of these industrial changes, it is true, became rich. But they acquired their wealth by supplying the public with motor cars, airplanes, radio sets, refrigerators, moving and talking pictures, and variety of less spectacular but no less useful innovations. These new products were certainly not an achievement of offices and bureaucrats.”

MovingWealthTalkingRichCarProductsOfficeAchievementCapitalismInnovationRadioVarietyAirplaneSpectacularMotorPioneersBureaucratsRefrigeratorsNew ProductsMotor Cars
Book:Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
Create image

“Capital movements are no longer necessarily related to the production of goods and services. Through the financial markets of the world, capital movements today are overwhelmingly concerned with the capture of and trade in property rights, the ownership of assets that magnify a corporation's wealth, power, and control. It is what John Maynard Keynes described as "a casino world"-wealth without worth.”

WorldTodayWealthRightsMovementCapitalismConcernedTradePropertyFinancialProductionsCorporationsRelatedGoodsAssetsCaptureOwnershipProperty RightsCasinosGoods And ServicesFinancial MarketsPower And ControlKeynes
Author:Eric Kierans
Create image

“The free market is notorious for distributing resources in a highly unequal manner, with great concentrations of wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom. Our social programs, modest compared to those of many other Western countries, play an important role in redistributing some of those resources from the haves to the have-nots.”

ImportantCountryPlaySocialWealthPovertyRolesCapitalismResourcesProgramWesternBottomConcentrationModestFree MarketNotoriousSocial ProgramsConcentration Of Wealth
Author:Linda McQuaig
Create image

“Market forces have no intrinsically moral direction, which is why, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ethics should precede economics. But it doesn't have to. . . . We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products - from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of ever-greater profits.”

KnowsShouldPoliticalForceNationsWaterWealthResultsMoralGreaterAirDangerousCarProductsTheoryDrinkDrugEthicsConscienceCapitalismEconomicsWorkersProfitBreathePursuitSentimentsAdamToysPollutionWealth Of NationsEndangerment
Author:Arianna Huffington
Create image

“The very essence of capitalism is under threat as business is now seen as a personal wealth accumulator. We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest. We need to fight very hard to create an environment out there that is more long term focussed and move away from short termism.”

WorldNeedsLongSelfHardMovingFightingTermInterestWealthEnvironmentGreaterThis WorldCapitalismEssenceThreatLong TermSanityShort TermSelf InterestGreater GoodPersonal Wealth
Author:Paul Polman
Create image

“The media propagates a message that corporations want, and there’s a belittling and mocking of the poor and celebration of wealth. A kind of cutthroat, rapacious capitalism is celebrated on reality television shows where you betray and manipulate and push aside your competitors for fleeting fame and money. These are sick values, but they’re disseminated through corporate media in almost every program you watch.”

WantKindShowsRealityValuesWealthPoorWatchesMediaTelevisionFameMessagesCapitalismProgramSickCorporateCorporationsCelebrationBetrayCompetitorsFleetingManipulateTelevision ShowsBelittleReality Television
Author:Chris Hedges
Create image

“Modern capitalism is just as subversive as Marxism. The materialistic view of life on which both systems are based is identical. As long as we only talk about economic classes, profit, salaries, and production, and as long as we believe that real human progress is determined by a particular system of distribution of wealth and goods, then we are not even close to what is essential.”

BelieveHumansLongRealWealthViewsClassProgressEconomicModernParticularEssentialsCapitalismProfitProductionsDeterminedGoodsDistributionMarxismSalaryIdenticalMaterialisticSubversiveHuman ProgressReal HumanDistribution Of WealthEconomic Class
Author:Julius Evola
Create image

“The collapse of the world's banking system and the impending disaster of accelerating climate change are not separate phenomena. They are simply the most visible symptoms of a particular model of capitalism that will bring civilisation to its knees. But those symptoms will not get sorted unless and until we commit to a radical transformation of the way we create and distribute wealth in the world today”

WorldWayTodayWealthParticularModelsCapitalismTransformationClimateClimate ChangeDisasterCommitRadicalKneesVisibleCollapseSymptomsBankingWorld TodayCivilisationBanking System
Author:Jonathon Porritt
Create image

“...those thoroughly incorporated within the inexorable logic of the market and its demands find that there is little time and space in which to explore emancipatory potentialities outside what is marketed as 'creative' adventure, leisure, and spectacle. Obliged to live as appendages of the market and of capital accumulation rather than as expressive beings, the realm of freedom shrinks before the awful logic and the hollow intensity of market involvements”

WealthFreedomCapitalismIndividualityConsumerismNeoliberalismMarket
Author:David Harvey
Create image

“I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.”

WealthBusinessPovertyEthicsCapitalismBig BusinessConservativesLiberalsAnticapitalismSocialists
Book:How to Be an Antiracist
Create image

“This revolution of values must go beyond traditional capitalism and Communism. We must honestly admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encourage smallhearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered. Equally, Communism reduces men to a cog in the wheel of the state. The Communist may object, saying that in Marxian theory the state is an “interim reality” that will “wither away” when the classless society emerges. True—in theory; but it is also true that, while the state lasts, it is an end in itself. Man is a means to that end. He has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system the fountain of freedom runs dry. Restricted are man’s liberties of press and assembly, his freedom to vote and his freedom to listen and to read. Truth is found neither in traditional capitalism nor in classical Communism. Each represents a partial truth. Capitalism fails to see the truth in collectivism. Communism fails to see the truth in individualism. Capitalism fails to realize that life is social. Communism fails to realize that life is personal. The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of Communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.”

ValuesWealthPovertyCapitalismProfitCommunismSelfishnessIndividualismCollectivism
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Create image

“Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.”

MenCountryHumorFunnyQuotesGrowthWealthPoorBoysPovertyEconomyRichEnvironmentProgressHumourIndustryCivilizationHumorousCapitalismEconomicsQuoteProfoundPhilosopherQuote Of The DayRichesManAspirationThoughtfulGlobal WarmingSatireWealthyThought ProvokingDeepInsightfulRole ModelsAphorismPollutionSouth AfricaAspireQuotationsAfricaMaximsSayingsEconomic GrowthAdagesProverbsAphorismsMake You ThinkThird WorldAxiomsAdageProverbSatiricalSayingEpigramsGdpAfricanBoyQuotationGnomeSatiristMaximEpigramDevelopGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkIndustrializationAxiomRole ModelDictumDictumsDeveloped CountryCountriesSouth AfricanCarbon EmissionsCarbon FootprintGross Domestic ProductSatiristsOzone LayerDevelopedUnderdeveloped CountriesFirst WorldEconomiesLook Up ToCapitalisticDeveloped CountriesGross National ProductEmissionGnpIndustrializedSecond WorldUnderdeveloped CountryUnderdeveloped
Book:The Use and Misuse of Children
Create image

“The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.”

PoliticsWealthFreedomDemocracyMediaCapitalismEconomicsLabourUnited KingdomSocial ClassEconomic InequalityBanks2011Rupert Murdoch
Author:Charles Moore
Create image

“Perhaps the answer is that it is necessary to slow down, finally giving up on economistic fanaticism and collectively rethink the true meaning of the word “wealth.” Wealth does not mean a person who owns a lot, but refers to someone who has enough time to enjoy what nature and human collaboration place within everyone’s reach. If the great majority of people could understand this basic notion, if they could be liberated from the competitive illusion that is impoverishing everyone’s life, the very foundations of capitalism, would start to crumble (p. 169).”

WealthCapitalismEconomic GrowthWork Life BalanceDegrowth
Author:Franco Bifo Berardi
Create image

“Experience has taught us that material wants know no natural bounds, that they will expand without end unless we consciously restrain them. Capitalism rests precisely on this endless expansion of wants. That is why, for all its success, it remains so unloved. It has given us wealth beyond measure, but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of having enough.”

WealthCapitalismEconomicsWants
Book:How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life
Create image

“The alienation, the downright visceral frustration, of the new American ideologues, the bone in their craw, is the unacknowledged fact that America has never been an especially capitalist country. The postal system, the land grant provision for public education, the national park system, the Homestead Act, the graduated income tax, the Social Security system, the G.I. Bill -- all of these were and are massive distributions or redistributions of wealth meant to benefit the population at large.”

WealthCapitalismSocialismPublic SectorRedistribution Of Wealth
Book:When I Was A Child I Read Books
Create image

“But a progressive policy needs more than just a bigger break with the economic and moral assumptions of the past 30 years. It needs a return to the conviction that economic growth and the affluence it brings is a means and not an end. The end is what it does to the lives, life-chances and hopes of people. Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes. But the test of the enormous wealth generated in patches of the capital is not that it contributed 20%-30% to Britain's GDP but how it affects the lives of the millions who live and work there. What kind of lives are available to them? Can they afford to live there? If they can't, it is not compensation that London is also a paradise for the ultra-rich. Can they get decently paid jobs or jobs at all? If they can't, don't brag about all those Michelin-starred restaurants and their self-dramatising chefs. Or schooling for children? Inadequate schools are not offset by the fact that London universities could field a football team of Nobel prize winners.”

PoliticsWealthEducationMoralityCapitalismEconomicsLondonBritainNobel PrizeProgressivismUniversities
Author:Eric Hobsbawm
Create image

“I was deeply concerned from my early teen days about the gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, and my reading of Marx made me ever more conscious of this gulf. Although modern American capitalism had greatly reduced the gap through social reforms, there was still need for a better distribution of wealth. Moreover, Marx had revealed the danger of the profit motive as the sole basis of an economic system: capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity—thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.”

WealthCapitalismGreedProfitCommunismMaterialismConsumptionIncome InequalityKarl MarxWealth Distribution
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
Create image

“In their quest to reduce all economic values to financial values, economists equated money with wealth, making money with creating wealth, and growth in the market price of an asset with growth in real value. They defined people as financial beings rather than living beings and ignored critical distinctions between the accumulated financial assets of individuals and the health and well-being of living communities. They forgot that the only legitimate purpose of an economy is to support households in making a living—not corporations in making a killing.”

WealthMoneyEconomyCapitalismEconomists
Book:When Corporations Rule the World
Create image

“MOBIUS: Neon, you’ve been living in the Nonprofit Matrix, a world controlled by wealthy individuals and corporations, who created a sector to delude people from seeing how they’re hoarding money, avoiding taxes, and furthering inequity while convincing people they are the solutions to the problems they cause. NEON: What are you talking about? I’m a good person. My nonprofit helps a lot of people. EQUITY: That’s true, it does. But remember that improv workshop you took once, where you learned about “Yes and”? NEO: Yes. And? EQUITY: You are helping people AND you are helping capitalism uphold itself by charity-washing its most egregious offenses. You see, by setting up foundations and donating to nonprofits, the extremely wealthy get to feel good about themselves while the masses are tricked into believing excessively wealthy people are good. This is how wealth disparity maintains itself.”

WealthRichCapitalismWealthyGood PeopleHoardingNonprofitsFeeling GoodWealth Disparity
Author:Vu Le
Create image

“During the last four decades of his life-journey, as this chronicle has revealed, it became more and more evident that there was one wrong, one thing over all, standing in the way of honest and contented living the unjust treatment of those who produce the wealth of the world by those who own most of that wealth; and that the continual fight between the moneyed interests and the working people (including artists) was the vital problem of our time. Now, during these recurring and ever-increasing conflicts, is it not obvious that we have to take sides? I think it has come to that, for all of us.”

WealthCapitalismWorking ClassClass StruggleClass War
Book:Art Young: His Life and Times
Create image

“¡Ah, la plata, la maldita plata! ¿Había algo más importante en la vida? Claro que no. Por la plata se mataban los hombres y por ella daban la vida. Ante ella se inclinaban papas y reyes, con ella soñaba el pobre, para ella vivía el rico, sin ella la vida era un páramo y tras ella corría todo el mundo. La plata era el placer, el poder y la gloria. ¿Qué era un hombre honrado y sin plata? Un cerdo a la izquierda. ¿Y qué era un hombre platudo y sin honra? El respeto y la virtud. Y en el peor de los casos, ¿qué importaba la deshonra, si se salvaba la plata?”

WealthCapitalismGreedSilverPlata
Book:Los Hijos Del Incienso Y De La Pólvora
Create image

“Excessive consumption was not seen as a desirable sign of membership of an elite, but as a warning: it was wealth for the benefit not of the city but of the individual, and it threatened to impoverish him too. Even more dangerously, if wealthy individuals clubbed together, who knew what damage they could inflict?...Wealth could too easily pervert one's judgement.”

PoliticsCommunityWealthCapitalismRich PeopleEliteExcessive
Book:Eureka!: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Ancient Greeks but Were Afraid to Ask
Create image