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Socialism Quotes

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Socialism Quotes

“A common, casual assumption is that if you give a basic income to people, they will become indolent and do nothing. In reality, people enjoy doing work when that work is satisfying. They don't hate being productive, they hate their jobs! Improve working conditions and make work a pleasure rather than a burden, and there's no reason why people won't engage in it. Very few people want to do nothing. They want to find meaning and feel accomplished and useful. Rosy views of human nature may be naive, but so are views that presume the natural state of humankind is slothful and selfish.”

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Book:Why You Should Be a Socialist
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“A religious theory of society necessarily regards with suspicion all doctrines which claim a large space for the unfettered play of economic self-interest. To the latter the end of activity is the satisfaction of desires, to the former the felicity of man consists in the discharge of obligations imposed by God. Viewing the social order as the imperfect reflection of a divine plan, it naturally attaches a high values to the arts by which nature is harnessed to the service of mankind. But, more concerned with ends than with means, it regards temporal goods as at best instrumental to a spiritual purpose, and its standpoint is that of Bacon, when he spoke of the progress of knowledge as being sought for ‘the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.”

ReligionPoliticsSocietyEthicsCapitalismEconomicsSocialismMorals
Author:RH Tawney
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“Nine out of ten eugenicists in the 20th Century were also Progressives or Socialists, as central to the eugenic creed is the desire to engineer and centrally plan human reproduction and heredity. These were not people that believed in individual liberty. They certainly didn't believe the individual had the right to chose their own mate freely. They were statists, They were totalitarians at heart.”

SocialismSocialistAutonomyTotalitarianismCivil LibertiesEugenicsStatismIndividual LibertyProgressivismProgressivesReproductive RightsTotalitarianSocialized MedicineScientific RacismUtopian SocialismCentral PlannersRace HygieneStatistPlanned SocietyFabian SocialismEugenicistsCivil Libertarian
Author:A.E. Samaan
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“Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind ... when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organization of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal.”

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Author:Friedrich Engels
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“But who would build the roads if there were no government? You mean to tell me that 300 million people in this country and 7 billion people on the planet would just sit around in their houses and think “Gee, I’d like to go visit Fred, but I can't because there isn’t a flat thing outside for me to drive on, and I don’t know how to build it and the other 300 million or 7 billion people can’t possibly do it because there aren’t any politicians and tax collectors. If they were here then we could do it. If they were here to boss us around and steal our money and really inefficiently build the flat places, then we would be set. Then I would be comfortable and confident that I could get places. But I can’t go to Fred’s house or the market because we can’t possibly build a flat space from A to B. We can make these really small devices that enable us to contact people from all over the word that fits in our pockets; we can make machines that we drive around in, but no, we can’t possibly build a flat space.”

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Author:Larken Rose
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“If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist.”

FreedomLibertyCapitalismLibertarianSocialismCommunismAnarchyTaxationTheftCoercionCollectivismStatismVoluntaryismNon Aggression PrincipleAncapAnarcho CapitalismNap
Author:Larken Rose
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“If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang.”

FreedomLibertyViolenceLibertarianSocialismAnarchyTaxationGangTheftMafiaCoercionCollectivismStatismVoluntaryismCriminalNon Aggression PrincipleAncapAnarcho CapitalismNap
Book:The Ethics of Liberty
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“In particular, the State has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly over police and military services, the provision of law, judicial decision-making, the mint and the power to create money, unused land ("the public domain"), streets and highways, rivers and coastal waters, and the means of delivering mail...the State relies on control of the levers of propaganda to persuade its subjects to obey or even exalt their rulers.”

GovernmentForceFreedomLibertyViolenceLibertarianSocialismAnarchyTaxationFree MarketGangMonopolyTheftMafiaCollectivismStatismVoluntaryismLaissez FaireNon Aggression PrincipleAncapAnarcho CapitalismAustrian School Of EconomicsNapAustrian Economics
Book:The Ethics of Liberty
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“There are members of our body politic who tell us that the public interest is best served when government action is reduced to a minimum and especially when it is kept negative in character. But just now, the nation as a whole seems to be moving rather swiftly and decisively—as is the world as a whole—in the opposite direction. More and more, we Americans are initiating new forms of positive government action for the common good. Between these two tendencies the struggle becomes every day more open and more intense. And as we wage that conflict it is well to remember that the logic of the Constitution gives no backing to either of the two combatants, as against the other. We are left free, as any self-governing people must leave itself free, to determine by specific decisions what our economy shall be. It would be ludicrous to say that we are committed by the Constitution to the economic cooperations of socialism. But equally ludicrous are those appeals by which, in current debate, we are called upon to defend the practices of capitalism, of "free enterprise," so-called, as essential to the freedom of the American Way of Life. The American Way of Life is free because it is what we Americans freely choose—from time to time—that it shall be.”

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Book:Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People
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“Dear Anarcho-Communist, If you and I ever find ourselves in a stateless society, have no fear. Just mention that you are a communist, and I promise I will never try to "oppress" and "exploit" you by offering to trade with you, or by offering to pay you to do work. Sincerely, Larken Rose”

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Author:Larken Rose
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“The government enforces a monopoly over the production and distribution of its alleged 'services' and brings violence to bear against would-be competitors. In so doing, it reveals the fraud at the heart of its impudent claims and gives sufficient proof that it is not a genuine protector, but a mere protection racket.”

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Author:Robert Higgs
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“I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society. It took some time before I recognized this as no more than a beautiful dream; that freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realize equality endangers freedom; and that, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.”

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Book:Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography
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“A man who devotes his time and efforts, under his own direction, at his own pleasure, from his own property, in order to “make others rich” is called a miserable wage slave by the socialist. Instead, they suggest that the man shed the shackles of this miserable burden by devoting his time and efforts, under the State’s direction, at the State’s pleasure, from the State’s property, in order to “make others less poor.”

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Book:The Greater Good: A Novel of Divided America
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“Socialism' should not be taken to mean merely subordinating the economy to the needs and values of society. It also involves the creation, as an effect of ever shorter and increasingly flexible working hours, of a growing sphere of sharing within the community, of voluntary and self-organized co-operation, of increasingly extensive self-determined activities.”

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Book:Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology
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“The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them.”

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Book:The Use and Misuse of Children
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“Nun stürzte ich mich voller Eifer auf die sozialistische Literatur. […] Ich las viel, ohne jede Ordnung und ohne System, die ‚Welträtsel‘ von Haeckel, Bücher von Forel, Darwin, die Reden von Ferdinand Lassalle, Engels´ ‚Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England‘, Gedichte von Freiligrath, Herwegh und Heine. Weil die Abendstunden nicht ausreichten, um meinen Lesehunger zu befriedigen, meldete ich mich im Betrieb krank und begann mehrere Wochen ‚Weltgeschichte‘ zu studieren. […] Das Leben hatte plötzlich einen anderen, neuen Inhalt bekommen. Der Lohn war nicht gestiegen, der Hunger nicht kleiner, trotzdem schien das Leben reicher und sonniger. Jedes neue Buch war ein Erlebnis, jedes neue Wissen erweckte ein bisher unbekanntes Kraftgefühl, das Dasein war nicht mehr hoffnungslos, wir fühlten, daß es eine Erlösung aus dem täglichen Grau und Einerlei des trüben Fabriklebens geben mußte.”

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Author:Willi Münzenberg
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“Thanks to its strong and broadly diffused organizational hubs, the Fasci spread quickly across Sicily. By January 1893 collectives had begun to appear in the island's smallest towns and villages. In the countryside, where less than 15 percent of the population were literate, participants in the movement generally expressed their grievances and demands by appeal to religious icons. During demonstrations, for example, while some participants would chant secular Marxist rhetoric about the need for radical redistribution, others would wield figures of saints and sing patriotic songs. Sometimes these influences even fused in an unlikely manner. Hundreds in the ranks carried crucifixes and candles while, at the same time, arguing that a rich and corrupt clergy had co-opted the fundamental truth of the faith, and that Jesus was an archetype for socialism. The composition of the cells was similarly diverse. Adolfo Rossi, a journalist who covered the revolts for the Roman newspaper La Tribuna, was particularly struck by the extensive female participation. Women, he reported, not only filled the ranks, rejecting their "usual" position in the background, they were leaders too. Girls as young as fifteen years old were on the frontlines of the movement. The single factor that enabled the Fasci to contain such a diverse political constituency within their ranks was the strength of their internal democratic process. Each of the bundles decided their policy proposals and direct actions based on a popular majority vote.”

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Book:The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History
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“According to a study done in 2011 by the welfare department of the CISL trade union, in the three-year period from 2006 to 2008 it could take as long as 540 days to have a mammogram scheduled (Puglia), 90 days to get a bone-density scan done (Veneto) and 74 days to see a geriatrics specialist in the generally well-organized Tuscany region. I myself know someone who had to wait seven months to get a heart bypass, and one of my next-door neighbors here in Rome waited almost a year for a hip replacement. Of course, this is not unusual for a country with national health; all the Brits I know decry their own system violently and even in Sweden, once a model for such things, there is considerable disorganization. The fact remains that the Italian national health system is often more virtual than real, forcing people who can afford it to look for an alternative solution.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“Reason and science have always, today and from the very beginning of time, played a secondary and a subordinate part; and so they will to the end of time. People are formed and moved by quite a different force, a force that dominates and exercises its authority over them, the origin of which, however, is unknown and inexplicable. That force is the force of an unquenchable desire to go on to the end and, at the same time, to deny the existence of an end. It is the force of an incessant and persistent affirmation of its existence and a denial of death. It is the spirit of life, as the Scripture says, "rivers of living water", the running dry of which is threatened in Revelation. It is the aesthetic principle, as the philosophers call it, an ethical principle, with which they identify it, the "seeking of God", as I call it much more simply. The purpose of the whole evolution of a nation, in every people and at every period of its existence, is solely the pursuit of God, their God, their very own God, and faith in Him as in the only true one. God is the synthetic personality of the whole people, taken from its beginning to its end. There has never yet been a nation without a religion, that is to say, without the conception of good and evil. Every people has its own conception of good and evil and its own good and evil. When the conceptions of good and evil become general among many nations, then these nations begin to die out, and the very distinction between good and evil begins to get blurred and to vanish.”

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Book:Demons
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“It becomes dramatically instructive under overcrowded conditions. The ghetto is lethal. Psychic stresses of overcrowding create pressures which will erupt. The city is an attempt to manage these forces. The social forms by which cities make the attempt are worth study. Remember that there exists a certain malevolence about the formation of any social order. It is the struggle for existence by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer.”

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Book:God Emperor of Dune
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“They (orcas) certainly display extraordinary levels of social support, including babysitting for each other's calves and caring for disabled individuals. Giles told me of a male orca from a transient mammal-eating pod, outside of the southern residents that has scolioses, yet is a thriving member of his family. 'They bring him food' she told me. 'It's hard for him to keep up with them, bur they loop back and bring him chunks of seal or whatever it is they've just killed. In a lot of human cultures they would leave that individual behind.' I can't help but think about how many of our human leaders would benefit from a paralimbic lobe transplant - to become more like these wise and compassionate matriarchs, with their unfathomable emotions and supportive, socially inclusive society.”

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Book:Bitch: On the Female of the Species
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“we have much to blush for in the acts of our ancestors… We must accept the capitalistic stage in social evolution as about on a par with the earlier monkey stage. The human had to pass through those stages in its rise from the mire and slime of low organic life. It was inevitable that much of the mire and slime should cling and be not easily shaken off.”

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Book:The Iron Heel
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“The cultural left's emphasis on identity means that other ways people are oppressed are overlooked. Class is the biggest way that people are oppressed, by a system that is made entirely by humans. People who suffer poverty experience a lack of access to suitable housing, healthcare, education and other things. There are much worse things than being called by the wrong name or being asked where your 'really' from. With poverty comes coldness, pain, fear, confusion, hunger, and embarrassment.”

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Book:IDiots: How Identity Politics is Destroying the Left
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“[...] The social justice warriors paved the way for a Trump government through accusing people of wrongdoing for trivial reasons. This lets actual bad guys slip past. When everyone is bad, who is really bad? If every white person is guilty of racism and white supremacy, what makes Trump worse than any other white person? Or if all men are sexist, what makes Trump more sexist than any other man? When we are constantly hearing about microaggressions, and subtle sexism and racism, it gets hard to know if to take public accusations seriously anymore.”

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Book:IDiots: How Identity Politics is Destroying the Left
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“All that social justice warriors have succeeded at is losing popular support for left wing policies and politicians, and ultimately, sparking a major pushback on left wing values. The social justice warrior movement has had many serious and wide reaching implications for all of us. It's time for it to finish.”

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Book:IDiots: How Identity Politics is Destroying the Left
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“Social justice warrior concepts themselves also fosters a mistrust of others. Thanks to the focus on microaggressions and unconscious bias, social just warriors live in a world where everyone is out to hurt them. To social justice warriors, the smallest remark or the most subtle facial expression, might symbolise a deep hatred of them.”

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Book:IDiots: How Identity Politics is Destroying the Left
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“Who would the average person vote for: a man who says you can become biologically female simply by identifying as such, or a man who says America is being screwed over by every other country in the world? One view is plain wrong. The second is an opinion a lot of people might not agree with, but it can't be shown to be objectively untrue in the way that the former's view can. Most people would choose the latter simply because he sounds less crazy. Most years, the latter man wouldn't have even gotten a look in, but we've created a situation where crazy things now sound perfectly reasonable.”

SocietySocial JusticeSocialismWoke Ideology
Book:IDiots: How Identity Politics is Destroying the Left
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