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Politics Quotes

“A fool and his money are soon elected.”

“Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.”

Use Form Political Evil Politics Wealth Money Needed Capitalism Wise Money Good Against Evil Inspirational Money Need Money Money Is The Root Of All Evil Spiritual Wealth Money Is Evil

Book:Gandhi: Selected Writings

Source: Gandhi: Selected Writings

“If you have a radio, the next three months is a good time to have it quit working. All you will hear from now until the 4th of November will be: 'We must get our government out of the hands of predatory wealth.' 'The good people of this great country are burdened to death with taxes. Now what I intend to do is ...' What he intends to do is try and get elected. That's all any of them intend to do. Another one that will hum over the old static every night will be: 'This country has reached a crisis in its national existence.'”

“Consider in what way the industrial system developed upon capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed?”

Men Way Should Eye Politics Natural Lines Wealth Economy Rich Normal Method Possession Contemporary Ease Liberalism Capitalist Machinery Rich Man Contemporary Society

Author:Hilaire Belloc

“Even if the wealth and power be well distributed throughout a community, its members will not be happy unless they are inwardly so, and obviously where the distribution is bad, where the few have a vast superfluity and the many are consumed by anxiety or want, or where a few controllers can exercise their will over the many, society has failed, even though its total wealth and power be increased.”

Ifs Want Wells Wisdom Politics Community Wealth Economy Exercise Members Anxiety Liberalism Distribution Consumed Controllers

Author:Hilaire Belloc

“In the same way the eminence attaching to the mere possession of great wealth disappoints us nine times out of ten, especially if the wealth has been accumulated rapidly. For great wealth is accumulated rapidly by cunning or chance, or a mixture of the two. Cunning has nothing to do with high qualities; it is rather a presumption against them; while chance has nothing to do with them either. Therefore it is that men are always complaining after meeting So-and-so, that he seemed to be astonishingly stupid, though he made a million in ten years and started as a pauper.”

“To control the production of wealth is to control human life itself. To refuse man the opportunity for the production of wealth is to refuse him the opportunity for life; and, in general, the way in which the production of wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which the citizens can legally exist.”

Men Way Humans Wisdom Law Opportunity Politics Wealth Economy Citizens Productions Refuse Human Life Liberalism

Book:Belloc: A Biographical Anthology

Source: Belloc: A Biographical Anthology

“Under the old social philosophy which had governed the Middle Ages, temporal, and therefore all economic, activities were referred to an eternal standard. The production of wealth, it distribution and exchange were regulated with a view to securing the Christian life of Christian men. In two points especially was this felt: First in securing the independence of the family, which can only be done by the wide distribution of property, in others words the prevention of the growth of a proletariat; secondly, in the close connection between wealth and public function.”

“The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and laws.”

Law Politics Natural Wealth Ability Results Moral Economy Economic Equal Rate Factors Liberalism Concentration Vary Economic Freedom Being Equal Concentration Of Wealth

Book:The Lessons of History

Source: The Lessons of History

“U.S. labor leaders will realize that automation can multiply man's wealth far more rapidly than it is multiplying at present and that automation will leave all men free to search and research... Realizing the direct competition with foreign industry on a straight labor basis will mean swiftly decreasing wages per hour and longer hours and decreasing buying power of the public.”

Men Mean Politics Realizing Hours Wealth Leader Economy Industry Research Labor Direct Bases Competition Liberalism Buying Wages Automation Multiplying Buying Power

Author:R. Buckminster Fuller

“American labor will realize that its function is not to increase jobs, but to multiply the wealth and to expand the numbers benefited by the wealth at the swiftest possible rate.”

Jobs Politics Realizing Wealth Numbers Economy Labor Function Increase Rate Liberalism

Author:R. Buckminster Fuller

“The effect of the corporation, under the prevailing policy of the free, go-as-you-please method of organization and management, has been to drive the bulk of our people, other than farmers, out of property ownership; and, if allowed to go on as present, it will keep them out... The paramount problem is not how to stop the growth of property, and the building up of wealth, but how to manage it so that every species of property, like a healthy growing tree will spread its roots deeply and widely in the soil of a popular proprietorship.”

“Kelso's proposals do promise to free us from our morbid dependency on economic health through armament manufacture; they promise a way out of the welfare mess, out of foodstamps and ship subsidies, out of perpetual inflation, and they suggest a means of doing these things without being too disruptive of the wealth of five percent of the population who own the rest of us.”

“The party should stand for a constantly wider diffusion of property. That is the greatest social and economic security that can come to free men. It makes free men. We want a nation of proprietors, not a state of collectivists. That is attained by creating a national wealth and income, not by destroying it. The income and estate taxes create an orderly movement to diffuse swollen fortunes more effectively than all the quacks.”

Source: Addresses Upon the American Road

“In our time, in particular, there exists another form of ownership which is becoming no less important than land: the possession of know-how, technology and skill. The wealth of the industrialized nations is based much more on this kind of ownership than on natural resources.”

“Everyone should own a piece of the wealth-producing capital of this country, but not everyone can be a manager. Or should be.”

Should Country Wisdom Politics Wealth Economy Pieces Managers Liberalism

Author:Louis O. Kelso

“If capital produces most of the economy's wealth and income is distributed on the basis of productive input, the individual can hardly reach his goal - an affluent level of income - solely by means of his labor.”

Ifs Mean Wisdom Politics Individual Goal Wealth Levels Economy Produce Labor Bases Income Liberalism Productive Input Affluent

Book:Two-factor Theory: the Economics of Reality; how to Turn Eighty Million Workers Into Capitalists on Borrowed Money, and Other Proposals

Source: Two-factor Theory: the Economics of Reality; how to Turn Eighty Million Workers Into Capitalists on Borrowed Money, and Other Proposals

“Take Milton Friedman, he sits at his desk pontificating about such bunk as the monetary system being the answer to our problems. The monetary system is a legal contrivance. Property, not money, is real wealth. It's physical, not legal.”

Real Problem Wisdom Politics Wealth Answers Economy Property Liberalism Desks Monetary Milton Monetary System Bunk Real Wealth

Author:Louis O. Kelso

“The idea that full employment without property ownership will solve the world's problems is utter nonsense. The Keynesian concept that the function of capital is merely to amplify labor, not independently produce wealth is simply blindness.”

World Ideas Problem Wisdom Politics Wealth Economy Produce Concepts Labor Function Property Solve Employment Liberalism Nonsense Ownership Blindness Amplify Property Ownership

Author:Louis O. Kelso

“The poor lack money. They lack money because they do not know the secret of productive wealth. They know it is possible to be old, unemployed, uneducated, lazy - even halt, deaf, dumb, and blind-and still be excessively rich. But you have to be in on the secret, and the poor by definition are not.”

Knows Stills Wisdom Politics Wealth Poor Secret Economy Rich Blind Definitions Dumb Liberalism Lazy Productive Deaf Halt Unemployed Uneducated

Author:Louis O. Kelso

“Work is a means; it is not an end. And for any tasks that can be performed or eliminated by a capital instrument, human labor is not the best means... Furthermore, we have science, engineering and management - the three disciplines - that really plan and control the production of goods and services, trying to eliminate labor. Who the hell is government to come along and try to create labor? The people who are producing wealth are trying to eliminate toil, while the politicians are trying to create it.”

“For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth.”

Believe Wisdom Politics I Believe Social Wealth My Own Economy Significant Income Psychological Inequality Liberalism Justification

Book:General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money

Source: General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money

“The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably.”

War Wisdom Politics Wealth Half Economy Mankind Century Benefits Built Fixed Liberalism Divided Immense Accumulation

Book:The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Source: The Economic Consequences of the Peace

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.”

Children Country Wisdom Politics Wealth Economy Democracy Capitalism Democratic Socialism Liberalism Capitalist Distribution Democratic Socialism Distribution Of Wealth Social Democracy Capitalism And Socialism

Book:From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice

Source: From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice

“For when men know they are working on what belongs to them, they work with far greater eagerness and diligence. Nay, in a word, they learn to love the land cultivated by their own hands, whence they look not only for food but for some measure of abundance for themselves and their dependents. All can see how much this willing eagerness contributes to an abundance of produce and the wealth of a nation.”

Knows Men Looks Hands Politics Nations Wealth Economy Greater Land Produce Willing Abundance Liberalism Diligence Eagerness

Book:On the Condition of Workers

Source: On the Condition of Workers

“We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nations to the changed conditions.”

Country Wisdom Hands Today Law Politics Nations Wealth Economy Conditions Changed Elements Rely Liberalism Republic Impossibility Rely Upon Bayonets Concentration Of Wealth

Author:James Madison

“Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development. One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed.”

Source: On the development of peoples

“In the first place, it is obvious that not only is wealth concentrated in our times but an immense power and despotic economic dictatorship is consolidated in the hands of a few, who often are not owners but only the trustees and managing directors of invested funds which they administer according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure. This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money.”

Firsts Hands Politics Wealth Pleasure Economy Economic Directors Obvious Credit Our Time Liberalism Owners Fund Immense Dictatorship Arbitrary Lending Trustees

Author:Pope Pius XI

“For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centred upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honourable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and envy of the rich.”

Source: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Volume II: (A Modern Library E-Book)

“They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.”

Men Politics Wealth Economy Luxury Liberalism

Book:Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans: Top Biography

Source: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans: Top Biography

“Rome was in the most dangerous inclination to change on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth.”

Source: Greek and Roman Lives

“Our Founding Fathers well understood that concentrated power is the enemy of liberty and the rights of man. They knew that the American experiment in individual liberty, free enterprise and republican self-government could succeed only if power were widely distributed. And since in any society social and political power flow from economic power, they saw that wealth and property would have to be widely distributed among the people of the country. The truth of this insight is immediately apparent.”

“Could there be anything resembling a free enterprise economy, if wealth and property were concentrated in the hands of a few, while the great majority owned little more than the shirts on their backs?”

Ifs Littles Wisdom Hands Politics Wealth Economy Majority Property Shirts Liberalism Enterprise Free Enterprise

Author:Ronald Reagan

“Could there be anything but widespread misery, where a privileged few controlled a nation's wealth, while millions labored for a pittance, and millions more were desperate for want of employment?”

Want Wisdom Politics Nations Wealth Millions Economy Misery Employment Desperate Liberalism Controlled Privileged

Author:Ronald Reagan

“This is not to say that the government should confiscate from the "haves" and bestow upon the "have-nots", beyond the requirements of a compassionate welfare program to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. Far from it. But it is to say that our duty is to foster a strong, vibrant wealth-producing economy which operates in such a way that new additions to wealth accrue to those who presently have little or no ownership stake in their country.”

Way Should Littles Country Government Politics Strong Wealth Economy Duty Program Welfare Liberalism Compassionate Stakes Ownership Requirements Welfare Programs

Author:Ronald Reagan

“Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America's vast corporate wealth which is today appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy.”

Helping Today America Form Politics Wealth Economy Workers Profit Corporate Liberalism Ownership Distribution Unhealthy Profit Sharing

Author:Walter Reuther

“The slave states of Western world are an outgrowth of monopolistic capitalism - an economic system which is opposed to the wide distribution of private property in many hands. Instead, monopolistic capitalism concentrates productive wealth among a few men, allowing the rest to become a vast proletariat.”

“In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.”

Men Wells Littles Country Politics Wealth Levels Economy Industry Cost Democratic Branches Liberalism Productive Elsewhere Democratic Country

Book:Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II

Source: Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II

“Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well”

Wells Values Politics Loses Wealth

Author:W. Somerset Maugham

“Trust him to have his bitter politics Against his unacquaintances the rich Who sleep in houses of their own, though mortgaged. Conservatives, they don't know what to save.”

Knows House Politics Wealth Sleep Rich Bitter

Book:A Further Range

Source: A Further Range

“It is important to note that multiculturalism does not share the postmodernist stance. Its passions are political; its assumptionsempirical; its conception of identities visceral. For it, there is no doubting that history is something that happened and that those happenings have left their mark within our collective consciousness. History for multiculturalists is not a succession of dissolving texts, but a tense tangle of past actions that have reshaped the landscape, distributed the nation's wealth, established boundaries, engendered prejudices, and unleashed energies.”

“It will never be possible for any length of time for any group of the American people, either by reason of wealth or learning or inheritance or economic power, to retain any mandate, any permanent authority to arrogate to itself the political control of American public life.”

People Reason Political Politics Wealth Groups Economic Politician Authority Permanent Length Cynical Inheritance Public Life Mandates Economic Power

Author:Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The 16th Amendment corroded the American concept of natural rights; ultimately reduced the American citizen to a status of subject, so much so that he is not aware of it; enhanced Executive power to the point of reducing Congress to innocuity; and enabled the central government to bribe the states, once independent units, into subservience. No kingship in the history of the world ever exercised more power than our Presidency, or had more of the people's wealth at its disposal.”

Source: Income Tax: Root of All Evil

“We have entered an Orwellian era in which entitlement replaces responsibility, coercion is described as compassion, compulsory redistribution is called sharing, race quotas substitute for diversity, and suicide is prescribed as 'death with dignity.' Political discourse has become completely corrupted. The reason is that if you tell people directly that you want to raise their taxes, transfer their wealth, count them by skin color, or let doctors kill them, most will object. Statists know this and therefore are obliged to obfuscate.”

“The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don't, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population.”

“But if the 1 percent and the 0.1 percent are respected and allowed to risk their wealth - and new rebels are allowed to rise up and challenge them - America will continue to be the land where the last regularly become the first by serving others.”

Ifs Firsts Lasts America Political Politics Challenges Wealth Risk Land Percent Serving Rebel Serving Others

Book:Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World

Source: Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World

“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.”

Source: Ayn Rand Novel Collection

“When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other, and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.”

Source: The Political Writings of Thomas Paine ...: Prospects on the Rubicon. Rights of man, part I. Rights of man, part II. Letter to the authors of the Republican. Letter to the Abbe Sieyes. Address to the addressers. Letters to Lord Onslow. Dissertation on the first principles of government. Speech delivered in the French National convention. Letter to Mr. Secretary Dundas. The decline and fall of the English system of finance. Letter to the people of France. Reasons for preserving the life of Louis

“We are the richest country in the world. We spend more on health care than any other country. Yet we have the worst health care in the Western world. Come on. We can do better than this.”

World Country Care Politics Can Do Wealth Worst Health Western Health Care Other Countries Western World

Author:Michael Moore

“If wealth is accumulated in the hands of a few, either by a feudal or a stock monopoly, it carries the power also; and a government becomes as certainly aristocratical, by a monopoly of wealth, as by a monopoly of arms. A minority, obtaining a majority of wealth or arms in any mode, becomes the government.”

Ifs Hands Government Politics Wealth Economy Arms Majority Liberalism Minorities Carrie Monopoly Obtaining

Book:An Inquiry Into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States

Source: An Inquiry Into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States