“If we're all led to believe that poverty is just a matter of laziness or stupidity or whatever other justifications we can come up with, then we're not likely to be in a real position to do much about it when it comes to attacking the root cause of the problem. Instead of demanding a more equitable system for the distribution of social and economic goods, we blame the victim. This is insidious, because ideology is something we carry around with us in our heads; it forms the basis of our day-to-day understanding of the world.” IfsWorldBelieveRealMatterProblemFormSocialCausesUnderstandingPovertyEconomicPositionRootsBasesVictimBlameCome UpStupidityIdeologyGoodsLazinessJustificationDay To DayDistributionAttackingInsidiousEquitableRoot Cause Book:Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights Source: Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights
“Side by side with the miseries of underdevelopment...we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissable. This superdevelopment consists in an excessive availability of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups and makes people slaves of "possession" and immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better. This is the civilization of consumption, or "consumerism," which involves so much throwing away and waste.” PeopleStillsFormCertainSocialSidesGroupsMaterialsCivilizationWasteBenefitsMiserySlavePossessionGoodsHorizonThrowingConsumptionConsumerismGratificationOverconsumptionReplacementsAvailabilityMultiplicationThrowing AwaySocial GroupsImmediate GratificationUnderdevelopment Author:Pope John Paul II
“The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance.” MeanSocialProcessResultsImpossibleEconomicPerfectionAvailableInstanceGoodsQuantityInherentIrrationalUnlimitedConstraints Author:Thomas Sowell
“Let's gear our advertising to sell goods, but let's recognize also that advertising has a broad social responsibility.” SocialResponsibilitySellsAdvertisingGoodsBroadsSocial ResponsibilityGears Author:Leo Burnett
“[Social legislation] raised the cost of production; and what can be more illogical than to raise the cost of production in the country and then to allow the products of other countries which are not surrounded by any similar legislation, which are free from any similar cost and expenditure freely to enter our country in competition with our own goods...If these foreign goods come in cheaper, one of two things must follow...either you will take lower wages or you will lose your work.” IfsTwoCountrySocialLosesProductsCostRaisesCompetitionRaisedProductionsOur CountryTwo ThingsGoodsOther CountriesLegislationWagesCheaperExpendituresIllogical Author:Joseph Chamberlain
“To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice.” KnowsPersonsWisdomTodayEvilPoliticsGivenSocialJusticeCommonEconomyRichShareHugeSocial JusticeDuesLiberalismGoodsConformityNormDistributionCommon GoodDisparityDiscerning Book:On reconstructing the social order: (Quadragesimo anno) Source: On reconstructing the social order: (Quadragesimo anno)
“Prostitution is the most hideous of the afflictions produced by the unequal distribution of the world's goods; this infamy stigmatizes the human species and bears witness against the social organization far more than does crime.” WorldHumansDoeSocialCrimeBearsOrganizationSpeciesWitnessGoodsAfflictionDistributionProstitutionHideousHuman SpeciesInfamySocial Organization Author:Flora Tristan