Quotes About Socialism

Seventy years after Marx's death, one third of the human race lived under regimes ruled by communist parties which claimed to represent his ideas and realise his aspirations.

Socialism is the abolition of human self-alienation, the return of man as a real human being.

In this, they echoed the views of a generation brought up to think of Britain as Great, but now doomed in peacetime to watch the American ascendancy, decolonisation, queues, bureaucracy, socialism and other perceived indignities as the Empire declined.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist who caucused with the Democrats, seemed to see the world as a vast conspiracy of big corporations and the wealthy. (Corporations and the wealthy have lots of power, certainly, but in the real world most bad things happen because of ignorance, incompetence, or bad luck, not as the result of grand conspiracies.)

If Obama learned one thing from FDR, it was that every socialist needs his foot soldiers.

The Leon Trotsky wing of the university hates capitalism with a vengeance. According to this faction, capitalism does nothing good; it only broadens the gap between rich and poor and results in the exploitation of people for the sake of money.

So what is the moral case for capitalism? It lies in recognition that socialism isn't a great idea gone wrong — it's an evil philosophy in action. It isn't driven by altruism; it's driven by greed and jealousy.

Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will starve.

socialist programs that discourage hard work and favor reliance on the government.

Avowed Marxist and tenured professor at the University of Texas, David Michael Smith, called capitalism "a system based on exploitation and oppression and domination and racism and war—and lots of other things."20 Right. And socialism is a system based on pretty butterflies and flowers and tolerance of all living creatures.

Professor Richard Sklar of UCLA described socialism as a "great idea"3 and communist dictator Mao Tse-Tung as a "great leader.

Implementation of socialism has resulted in more deaths than all the international wars of the twentieth century combined. Is socialism really a "great idea"? Mao caused the deaths of millions of his own people. Does that constitute great leadership?

Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which diverent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.

Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.

In truth, it is no more clear in our time than it was in Marx's how socialism will come about in either developed or undeveloped countries; what is clear is that for humanity to have a decent future, it must come about.

Almost the only persons who may be said to comprehend even approximately the significance, principles, and purposes of Socialism are the chief leaders of the extreme wings of the Socialistic forces, and perhaps a few of the money kings themselves.

More and more communists are coming to realize that socialism without democracy is no socialism at all.... I believe that the next decade will see the growth in democratic socialism against the ideas of monetarism and corporation.

The word 'socialism' on my poster has not lost me a single vote. People will support you if you're serious. My complaint about the Labour movement is that it hasn't done any teaching for 40 years; it has always been on the defensive. Thatcher was successful because she was a teacher. Her values, of course, were rotten.

The major reason for Keynes's rejection of communism was simply that he could scarcely identify with the grubby proletariat.

But like every good American, Truman knew he hated Communism. He also hated socialism, which may or may not have been the same thing. No one seemed quite sure. Yet as early as the American election of 1848, socialism—imported by comical German immigrants with noses always in books—was an ominous specter, calculated to derange a raw capitalist society with labor unions, health care, and other Devil's work still being fiercely resisted a century and a half later.

I am a socialist, so I am not worried about socialism. I am worried about dictators who are putting everyone into a socialist state for their own benefit.

The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.

Conservatives may worship Adam Smith's 'invisible hand,' but for Obama, the helping hand comes in large measure from the public, not the private sector. To call this 'socialism' is to do violence to the word and to the concept. To call it 'un-American' is a smear.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.