Best Collective Action Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“There are so many things to be done, and progressive minds are overflowing with ideas and proposals. As we consider real-world actions, though, there's one thing worth remembering above all: the future can't be planned by a group of socialist intellectuals designing bullet-pointed lists of what's best for the rest of humanity. Democracy means that people make choices themselves, and good ideas emerge from healthy, collective deliberation... Personally, I'ld like to see a thriving culture of political discussions, where the cafes are full of people passionately hashing out their disagreements about What Must Be Done. Not everyone has to participate in political life, but everyone should at least feel like someone would listen to them if they came up with a solution to a problem.”

Inspirational Passion Politics Democracy Socialism Cafes Democratic Socialism Collective Action Political Discussion

Book:Why You Should Be a Socialist

Source: Why You Should Be a Socialist

“[Imprisoned Poem] Somewhere deep inside me There lies an imprisoned poem A poem that is Buried Chained And holding its breath Ages ago… A poem about futility The fragility of words About alarms, if sounded, They’d be either destined to silence Or get written on the walls of indifference… There is an ancient poem Imprisoned in my soul Waiting to be released impatiently, In due time… Like a house cat this imprisoned poem keeps eagerly watching Every move outside the window, Without any participation… And like a house cat, Whenever this imprisoned poem Gets exhausted by the triviality of reality, It sleeps for long hours Only to wake up and find The status quo unchanged And the strings moving the puppets uncut… It then looks out the window in sorrow And goes back to sleep once again To dream of a less ugly world… My imprisoned poem has vowed not to release itself From the deepest points in my soul Until everyone else is awake For its release to be meaningful… (November 17, 2014)”

Humanity Prison Unity Futility Arabic Poetry Collective Consciousness Arabic Literature Collective Action The Power Of Words

Book:أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

Source: أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“We need the help of other people to be born into this world and to leave it.”

Wisdom Life And Death Mortality Cooperation Human Condition Solidarity Interdependence Collective Action Life Cycle Communal

Author:Stewart Stafford

“A great many a drop of water will create a creek.”

Change Poetic Collective Action Collective Responsibility

Author:Giovanni Morassutti

“In reality, the way to topple a dictator is found within ourselves.”

Revolution Empowerment Social Justice Direct Action Collective Action Grassroots Organizing Power Structures Political Resistance Anti Authoritarianism Civic Courage

Book:How to Dismantle a Dictatorship

Source: How to Dismantle a Dictatorship

“Individuals make history, but it's also a collective thing, a wave that people ride in their time, a wave made of individual actions. So ultimately history is another particle/wave duality that no one can parse or understand.”

History Agency Collective Action Individual Action

Book:New York 2140

Source: New York 2140

“Little changes do not transform frameworks that are fundamentally unfair. The last few decades have enabled a record shift of money and power to a very few, but the remedy for inequality is what it has always been: collective action through the organised movement of working people. The trade union movement is the equalising, opposite force against the greed of the wealthy and privileged. This is the reason why the wealthy and privileged are so relentless in their campaign to crush unionism.”

Inequality Neoliberalism Collective Action Union Movement

Book:On Fairness

Source: On Fairness

“I am just the person that is here. I have help from people of all ages from everywhere—and that is the only way we are going to find a solution to these problems.”

Inspiration Hope Community Solutions Optimism Unity Connection Teamwork Collaboration Collective Action

Book:Fingerprints In The Water

Source: Fingerprints In The Water

“We were crushed’ said Judith; ‘for lack of resolution more than lack of numbers. A strike is nothing if a worker may pledge herself to it today and return to the factory tomorrow. So we gather here; tonight, to unite and entwine our fate.”

Strikes Proletariat Collective Action

Book:The Factory Witches of Lowell

Source: The Factory Witches of Lowell

“The native intellectual had learnt from his masters that the individual ought to express himself fully [and that his] only wealth is individual thought. [...] the people during the struggle for freedom will discover the falseness of the theory [...] the interest of one will be the interests of all, for in concrete fact everyone will be discovered by the troops, everyone will be massacred - or everyone will be saved”

Unity Liberation Collective Action Colonisation

Book:The Wretched of the Earth

Source: The Wretched of the Earth

“There's some really interesting research that shows that action towards climate change in fact doesn't address climate anxiety, it doesn't alleviate our sense of despair about climate change, that action in a collective is the essential thing. And so there's a sort of misnomer that happens. There's a misunderstanding that if we do some actions, we'll feel better. But in fact, it's the collective part that makes us feel better, and less so the action itself. And so the collective makes us feel efficacious, the collective has that social contagion factor of hope and joy and pleasure.”

Anxiety Climate Change Individualism Socializing Collective Action Social Activism Group Action Social Contagion

Author:Sarah Jaquette Ray

“In the weave of class consciousness, each strained thread stitches resistance against the cloak of oppression.”

Poetry Politics Social Justice Metaphor Activism Resistance Oppression Critical Thinking Collective Action Class Consciousness

Author:Paulo Ricardo Zargolin

“There is no larger collective-action problem than the environment. The three biggest lies of the environmental movement is that every little bit helps, you can do your part, and together we can do it.”

Littles Helping Problem Action Together Lying Three Bits Can Do Environment Movement Little Bit Environmental Collectives Together We Can Collective Action

Author:Clay Shirky

“Our problem is that the climate crisis hatched in our laps at a moment in history when political and social conditions were uniquely hostile to a problem of this nature and magnitude-that moment being the tail end of the go-go '80s, the blastoff point for the crusade to spread deregulated capitalism around the world. Climate change is a collective problem demanding collective action the likes of which humanity has never actually accomplished. Yet it entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere.”

“Self-interest and mutual interest are inextricably linked. National interests can best be advanced through collective action, ... Calculate not just the human misery of the poor themselves. Calculate our loss: The aid, the lost opportunity to trade, the short-term consequences of the multiple conflicts; the long-term consequences on the attitude to the wealthy world of injustice and abject deprivation amongst the poor.”

“Ultimately, the challenges of the 21st century can't be met without collective action. Agreement will almost never be easy, and results won't always come quickly. But I am committed to respecting different points of view, and to forging a consensus instead of dictating our terms... That's how we will advance and uphold our ideals.”

“We need to create the institutions that will support the society we want to live in. The only answer is collective action.”

Want Needs Action Answers Support Institutions Collectives Collective Action

Author:Nick Harkaway

“If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode. You can just as easily see a crises or problem as a challenge, an opportunity to prove your mettle, the chance to strengthen and toughen yourself, or a call to collective action. By seeing it as a challenge, you will have converted this negative into a positive purely by a mental process that will result in positive action as well.”

Ifs Wells Problem Action Opportunity Process Challenges Chance Results Views Seeing Prove Negative Crisis Collectives Retreat Lenses Collective Action Mettle

Book:The 50th Law

Source: The 50th Law

“Every mob, in its ignorance and blindness and bewilderment, is a League of Frightened Men that seeks reassurance in collective action.”

Men Action Ignorance Civilization League Collectives Frightened Blindness Reassurance Bewilderment Collective Action

Book:The Unfinished Country

Source: The Unfinished Country

“Fast food workers are all the governor has power to enact. Your state legislature is held hostage by the same nitwits that hold hostage the federal [government]. People who have confused suffocating collectivism, which is bad, for a necessity to solve collective action problems, which is what all human endeavor is based on.”

“Communication media enabled collective action on new scales, at new rates, among new groups of people, multiplied the power available to civilizations and enabled new forms of social interaction. The alphabet enabled empire and monotheism, the printing press enabled science and revolution, the telephone enabled bureaucracy and globalization, the internet enabled virtual communities and electronic markets, the mobile telephone enabled smart mobs and tribes of info-nomads.”

“The path to big, systemic change is collective action. That takes Sister Courage.”

Bigs Action Path Collectives Collective Action Systemic Change

Book:No Excuses: Nine Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power

Source: No Excuses: Nine Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power

“Terrorism attacks peoples' trust in the system of their state. There is protection, but only if there is collective action and collective understanding about how to really deal with this phenomenon.”

Ifs States Action Understanding Deals Terrorism Protection Collectives Phenomenon Collective Action

Author:Ashraf Ghani

“Power is the relation of a given person to other persons, in which the more this person expresses opinions, theories and justifications of the collective action the less is his participation in that action.”

Persons Action Given Opinion Theory Relation Collectives Justification Participation Collective Action

Book:Political Leadership: Stories of Power and Politics from Literature and Life

Source: Political Leadership: Stories of Power and Politics from Literature and Life

“I have gained and sustained my optimism as a humble student of our living universe, our living Earth, which clearly shows us the way out of our adolescent crisis into a mature global future. The sooner we create our vision of all we desire, set our intention to implement it together, and put our individual capacities into collective action, the greater our chances of success.”

Way Shows Action Earth Together Desire Universe Individual Women Chance Vision Greater Students Capacity Optimism Crisis Intention Humble Collectives Mature Collective Action

Author:Elisabet Sahtouris

“We cannot predict the effects of our actions, especially our collective actions over generations or centuries, to use instrumental reasoning toward these big final ends to tell us what we ought to do.”

Ends Use Bigs Action Generations Effects Century Ought Finals Reasoning Collectives Our Actions Collective Action

Author:Allen W. Wood

“In the face of the collective action problems that are at the heart of the environmental crisis, consequentialists should seek to inculcate the "green virtues" which includes the virtue of cooperativeness. This would not bring about the best possible world but it would set us on the path of making it better.”

World Should Heart Problem Action Faces Virtue Path Crisis Green Environmental Collectives Collective Action Environmental Crisis

Author:Dale Jamieson

“What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You had blacks and whites coming together and sacrificing, organizing and mobilizing the world. That's the first time we've had collective action put at the center of any kind of portrayal of Martin King on the screen.”

World Firsts Kind Action Together Humanity Rich Sacrifice Movement Kings First Time Screens Collectives Luther Multiracial Coming Together Portrayal Collective Action

Author:Cornel West

“Through their own actions, customers can hold companies responsible to higher standards of social responsibility. Through collective action, they can leverage their dollars to combat the force of those investors who myopically pursue profits at the expense of the rest of society.”

“Any time women come together with a collective intention, it's a powerful thing. Whether it's sitting down making a quilt, in a kitchen preparing a meal, in a club reading the same book, or around the table playing cards, or planning a birthday party, when women come together with a collective intention, magic happens.”

“Contrary to the utopian rhetoric of social media enthusiasts, the Internet often makes the jump from deliberation to participation even more difficult, thwarting collective action under the heavy pressure of never-ending internal debate.”

Action Social Difficult Media Internet Pressure Heavy Social Media Contrary Debate Internals Collectives Rhetoric Participation Never Ending Utopian Deliberation Collective Action

Author:Evgeny Morozov

“The widely accepted assertion that, only if you let markets be will everyone be paid correctly and thus fairly, according to his worth, is a myth. Only when we part with this myth and grasp the political nature of the market and the collective nature of individual productivity will we be able to build a more just society in which historical legacies and collective actions, and not just individual talents and efforts, are properly taken into account in deciding how to reward people.”

People Ifs Able Action Political Individual Effort Taken Talent Accounts Paid Historical Rewards Myth Productivity Accepted Legacy Collectives Assertion Collective Action Individual Talent

Author:Ha-Joon Chang

“When people align around shared political, social, economic or environmental values, and take collective action, thinking and behaviour that compromises the lives of millions of people around the world can truly change.”

People Thinking World Action Political Values Social Millions Environment Economic Environmental Compromise Around The World Collectives Behaviour Collective Action

Author:Simon Mainwaring

“The national school is not a lecture hall or a library. Its schooling consists chiefly in experimental collective action aimed at the realization of a collective purpose.”

Action School Purpose Education Library Realization Collectives Halls Lectures Schooling Collective Action

Author:Herbert Croly

“Now it is worth noticing two things about the private substitutes that I have described. The first is that in the aggregate they are probably much more expensive than would be the implementation of the appropriate public policy. The second is that they are extremely poor replacements for the missing outcomes of good public policy. Nevertheless, it is plain that the members of a society can become so alienated from one another, so mistrustful of any form of collective action, that they prefer to go it alone.”

“The gang that trashed the town was now back in town to trash it even more and you'll never guess.. they decided that the only way to save an economy brought to its knees by their collective actions and the banking system they represent was to, well, no, surely not.. hand trillions of taxpayer-borrowed dollars to the Rothschild-controlled banks and insurance companies like CitiGroup, J. P. Morgan, AIG and a long list of others.”

“For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

Action Individual Challenges Principles Understood Response Collectives Founding Fidelity Pro Life Individual Freedom New Challenges Collective Action

Author:Barack Obama

“Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.”

“The Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs.”

May Self States Action Individual Interest United United States Holy Cost Universal Rational Collectives Self Interest Coverage Holy Grail Collective Action

Author:Donald Berwick

“What is missing from the policy analyst's tool kit -- and from the set of accepted, well-developed theories of human organization -- is an adequately specified theory of collective action whereby a group of principals can organize themselves voluntarily to retain the residuals of their own efforts.”

Humans Wells Action Effort Groups Missing Policy Theory Tools Organization Accepted Collectives Principal Organize Analysts Collective Action

Book:Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action

Source: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action

“We are moving from sharing to cooperation to collective action.”

Action Moving Collectives Collaboration Cooperation Collective Action

Author:Clay Shirky

“But our energy woes are in many ways the result of classic market failures that can only be addressed through collective action, and government is the vehicle for collective action in a democracy.”

Way Government Action Energy Results Democracy Classic Collectives Vehicle Woe Collective Action Market Failure

Author:Sherwood Boehlert

“Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement - at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all.”

“We are the makers of our own state and...individuals who realize the fact need not, ought not, to wait for collective action.”

Inspirational Needs States Facts Action Individual Waiting Realizing Ought Collectives Makers Enviromental Collective Action

Book:The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas

Source: The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas

“Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement. There are only individual minds and individual achievements-an d a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.”

Men Mind Culture Individual Products Achievement Mass Intellectual Collectives Deep Thought Wise Women Anti Racist Collective Action Collectivity Individual Achievement

Author:Ayn Rand

“Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group - whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called 'the common good'.”

Men Mean Doe Matter States Action Individual Common Race Class Groups Sake Collectives Common Good Collectivism Chained Subjugation Collective Action

Author:Ayn Rand

“You don’t get black power by chanting it. You get it by doing what the other groups have done. The Irish kept quiet. They didn’t shout “Irish Power”, “Jew Power”, [or] “Italian Power”. They kept their mouths shut and took over the police department of New York City, and the mayorship of Boston.”

Done Black Cities Groups New York Quiet Mouths Police Jew Department Italian New York City Boston Chanting Black Power Police Department Collective Action

Author:Whitney M. Young

“If in previous decades large historic events drew people together and oriented them toward collective action, the recent double trend toward greater choice but less security leads the young to see their lives in more individual terms. Big events collectivize. Little events atomize.”

People Ifs Littles Bigs Action Together Young Choices Individual Term Greater Security Events Decades Collectives Trends Historic Collective Action Big Events

Author:Arlie Russell Hochschild

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Collective Action Quotes