Quotes About Power

As the great jurist and Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once said, "We may have democracy or we may have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

A far better way to slow medical costs is to use Medicare and Medicaid's bargaining power over drug companies and hospitals to get lower prices and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-healthy-outcomes system. And because Medicare has far lower administrative costs than private health insurers, we should make Medicare available to everyone.

the only antidote for big lies is big truth—told relentlessly and powerfully. You must be armed with it.

When large corporations have disproportionate power—not only over what's sold, but also over the rules for deciding what contracts are permissible and enforceable by law—those who are relatively powerless have no choice. The "free market" is not, in this sense, free. It offers no practical alternative.

Socialism inevitably produces stagnation, corruption and often worse—such as authoritarian government officials who often have an increasing ability to interfere with both the economy and individual lives—which they frequently do to maintain power," he wrote, adding that socialism would be "a disaster for our country.

Republicans want us to believe that the central issue is the size of government, but the real issue is whom government is for.

First, forget politics as you've come to see it as electoral contests between Democrats and Republicans. Think power. The underlying contest is between a small minority who have gained power over the system and the vast majority who have little or none.

How many billionaires and big corporations does it take to buy the presidency and Congress? We would soon find out—although we would not know many of their names.

In 2013, Apple spent $3,370,000 on lobbying; Amazon, $3,456,000; Facebook, $6,430,000; Microsoft, $10,490,000; and Google, $15,800,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with all this, they're told the First Amendment doesn't apply.

Socialism for the Rich, Harsh Capitalism for the Rest

We cannot tolerate inordinate wealth for the few along with unbridled money in politics. As the great jurist and Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once said, "We may have democracy or we may have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

The idea of a "free market" separate and distinct from government has functioned as a useful cover for those who do not want the market mechanism fully exposed. They have had the most influence over it and would rather keep it that way. The mythology is useful precisely because it hides their power.

Today the great divide is not between left and right. It's between democracy and oligarchy.

Government doesn't "intrude" on the "free market." It creates the market. The rules are neither neutral nor universal, and they are not permanent. Different societies at different times have adopted different versions. The rules partly mirror a society's evolving norms and values but also reflect who in society has the most power to make or influence them.

There can be no "free market" without government. The "free market" does not exist in the wilds beyond the reach of civilization. Competition in the wild is a contest for survival in which the largest and strongest typically win. Civilization, by contrast, is defined by rules; rules create markets, and governments generate the rules.

The concentration of wealth in America has created an education system in which the super-rich can buy admission to college for their children, a political system in which they can buy Congress and the presidency, a health-care system in which they can buy care that others can't, and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail.

Who had the biggest army in the ancient world? Caesar Augustus in Rome, and that is precisely how he was able to dominate that world. Nevertheless, his army is nothing compared to this angelic stratias that has lined up behind the new emperor. Remember Isaiah's prophesy that Yahweh would one day bare his mighty arm before all the nations. N.T. Wright has magnificently observed that the prophecy finds its fulfillment in the tiny arm of the baby Jesus coming out of his manger-crib.

Only when you've had that experience of falling in love with something, Barron believes, will learning the rules that support it make sense. Otherwise, "rule-talk" is always going to seem like someone trying to control another, like an exercise in power rather than liberation to play the game well.

And when a politician abuses his office and uses his power for his own aggrandizement, Biblical people should rise up and protest with all of the insistence, courage, and eloquence of Nathan in the court of David.

The Christified person knows that his life is not finally about him but about God; the Eucharistized person understands that her treasure is to be found above and not below. Wealth, pleasure, power, honor, success, titles, degrees, even friendships and family connections are all relativized as the high adventure of life with God opens up. The eternalized person can say with Paul, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me," and "We have here no lasting city.

People in oppressive political situations are so afraid to give voice to their convictions that they lose confidence in the very category of truth and in the power of speech to bring clarity and liberation.

Before marriage a woman may procure some éclat by pretending to believe in the fiction of her ascendancy; but after marriage, the worshipped beauty becomes a very plain every-day sort of person, and the poetry of the sex's power is at an end for ever!

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is an enabler.