Socialism Quotes

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It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.

What is necessary is for workers and the left to obtain all the lessons the Chilean experience can offer, so that we never again make these errors. That's why I maintain, that in Chile the left has not failed, socialism has not failed, nor has the revolution failed, nor have workers failed. What came to a tragic end in Chile was the reformist illusion of modifying socio-economic structures and making revolutions before the pasive consent of those to be most affected: the ruling classes.

Miguel Enríquez

We should not delude ourselves into thinking that an incomes policy is other than a serious infringement of freedom... Nor have the Liberals explained how it is to be worked, and even if they had, it is certainly not a permanent answer to our economic troubles... At present, the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance occasionally looks too much like a half-way house on the old road to state socialism. It will spend more than the Tories but rather less than Labour... Such compromises may win votes, but they will not improve the country.

What is peddled about nowadays as philosophy, especially that of N. S. [National Socialism], but has nothing to do with the inner truth and greatness of that movement [namely the encounter between global technology and modern humanity] is nothing but fishing in that troubled sea of values and totalities.

Martin Heidegger

If you bail out every investment bank that gets in trouble, that's not capitalism, that's socialism for the rich

Socialism is humanity's second nature. All politicians do is turn human vice into votes.

Is it not highly disgraceful and dangerous to make increasingly frequent attempts, either directly or indirectly (through silence), to publicly rehabilitate Stalin, his associates, and his policy, his pseudosocialism of terroristic bureaucracy, a socialism of hypocrisy and ostentatious growth that was at best a quantitative and one-sided growth involving the loss of many qualitative features?

Andrei Sakharov

The first and most important thing to understand about politics is this: forget Right, Left, Center, socialism, fascism, or democracy. Every government that exists — or ever existed, or ever will exist — is a kleptocracy, meaning 'rule by thieves'. Competing ideologies merely provide different excuses to separate the Productive Class from what they produce. If the taxpayer/voters won't willingly fork over to end poverty, then maybe they'll cough up to fight drugs or terrorism. Conflicting ideologies, as presently constituted, are nothing more than a cover for what's really going on, like the colors of competing gangs.

As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways.

Alexis de Tocqueville

It is fundamental to Socialism that we should liquidate the British Empire as soon as we can.

Stafford Cripps

Education is a slow process, and may not come too quickly. Anarchists who endeavor to hasten it by joining in the propaganda of State Socialism or revolution make a sad mistake indeed. They help to so force the march of events that the people will not have time to find out, by the study of their experience, that their troubles have been due to the rejection of competition. If this lesson shall not be learned in a season, the past will be repeated in the future, in which case we shall have to turn for consolation to the doctrine of Nietzsche that this is bound to happen anyhow, or to the reflection of Renan that, from the point of view of Sirius, all these matters are of little moment.

Benjamin Tucker

First, we should become informed about communism, about socialism, and about Americanism. What better way can one become informed than by first studying the inspired words of the prophets and using that as a foundation; against which to test all other material. This is in keeping with the Prophet Joseph Smith's motto, "When the Lord commands, do it."

Ezra Taft Benson

That Solidarity was a religious movement no one, least of all the Soviets, can deny. In November 1981, Pravda denounced 'religious fanaticism' as a grave challenge to socialism; failure to contain it, Pravda said, was at the root of the problems in Poland.

Socialism is simply a re-assertion of that tribal ethics whose gradual weakening had made an approach to the Great Society possible.

Friedrich Hayek

Along this road of spending, the government either takes over, which is Socialism, or dictates institutional and economic life, which is Fascism.

The masses favor socialism because they trust the socialist propaganda of the intellectuals. The intellectuals, not the populace, are molding public opinion.

Ludwig von Mises

We should know why paternalism, collectivism, or unnecessary federal supervision will hold our standard of living down and reduce productivity just as it has in every country where it has been tried. We should also know why the communist leaders consider socialism the highroad to communism.

Ezra Taft Benson

All socialism involves slavery. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy anothers desires.

Herbert Spencer

Almost all the fathers of socialism were members of the upper middle class or of the professions.

Ludwig von Mises

Bolshevism and Fascism were heresies of socialism.

Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.

What precisely is this disease that causes inflation and all these other troubles? It has many popular names, such as socialism, communism, state interventionism, and welfare statism.

Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.

Stalinism is a pathology of socialism, Hitlerism being the apposite example for capitalism.

Robert Heilbroner

True American Liberalism utterly denies the whole creed of socialism.