Quotes About Society

The history of all hitherto existing society1 is the history of class struggles.

The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society.

The highest point reached by contemplative [anschauende] materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and of civil society [bürgerlichen Gesellschaft].

En nuestra sociedad los que trabajan no adquieren y los que adquieren no trabajan.

every class struggle is a political struggle.

there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

La riqueza de las sociedades en las que domina el modo de producción capitalista se presenta como un enorme cúmulo de mercancías, y la mercancía individual como la forma elemental de esa riqueza

The history of all hitherto existing society8 is the history of class struggles.

grands dignitaires de l'armée, de l'Université, de l'Église, du barreau, de l'Académie et de la presse étaient partagés, bien qu'en proportion inégale, entre les deux courants. Ils avaient trouvé dans la République bourgeoise, qui ne portait ni le nom de Bourbon, ni celui d'Orléans, mais celui de Capital, la forme d'État dans laquelle ils pouvaient régner en commun.

Its patriarchal society became one in which people were reduced to factors of production, with the whole system fueled by desire for export profits.

La historia de toda sociedad se resume en el desarrollo de los antagonismos de 1as clases, antagonismos que han revestido diversas formas en las distintas épocas. Pero cualquiera que haya sido la forma revestida por esos antagonismos, la explotación de una parte de la sociedad por la otra es un hecho común a todos los siglos anteriores.

In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer. In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter in practice. This is, in general, the relationship between the political and literary representatives of a class and the class they represent.

Nevertheless, for weal or for woe, there is no such thing extant as Anglo-Saxon—of all nations, said to be Anglo-Saxon, in the United States least. What we still have from England, much as appearances may seem to point the other way, is not of our bone-and-marrow, so to speak, but rather partakes of the nature of importations. We are no more English on account of them than we are Chinese because we all drink tea.

Maddi yaÅŸamdaki üretim biçimi, yaÅŸam?n toplumsal, siyasal ve düÅŸünsel sürecinin genel niteliÄŸine egemendir. Ä°nsanlar?n varl?klar?n? belirleyen ÅŸey, bilinçleri deÄŸildir; tam tersine, onlar?n bilinçlerini, toplumsal varl?klar? belirler.

Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand. The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp upon the brain of the living

In the economic system, under the rule of private property, the interest which an individual has in society is in precisely inverse proportion to the interest society has in him — just as the interest of the usurer in the spendthrift is by no means identical with the interest of the spendthrift.

The medieval proverb nulle terre sans seigneur [There is no land without its lord. — Ed.] is thereby replaced by that other proverb, l'argent n'a pas de maître [Money knows no master. — Ed.], wherein is expressed the complete domination of dead matter over man.

The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social, status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

E]verything which appears in the worker as an activity of alienation , of estrangement , appears in the non-worker as a state of alienation , of estrangement .

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.

If money, according to Augier, comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.