SOCIALISM QUOTES IV

quotations about socialism

The socialist "revolutionaries" respond the way they always have: they try to save the revolution by exterminating political freedom.

ROBERT TRACINSKI

"Why Is The New York Times Trying To Rehabilitate Communism?", The Federalist, August 3, 2017


Anyone who objects to any government whatsoever as a form of socialism ought not to pull that socialist lever in their home, the one that makes their waste disappear in a whirlpool into the socialized sewage treatment plant.

JOHN MÉDAILLE

The Distributist Review, August 31, 2009


What is a Socialist? That's when all are equal and all have property in common, there are no marriages, and everyone has any religion and laws he likes best. You are not old enough to understand that yet.

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The Brothers Karamazov

Tags: Fyodor Dostoevsky


If socialism is a nonentity in the experiencing world, then what is it in reality? I have argued that in the experiencing world, what was set up was not socialism but statism. Statism is a fact whereas socialism is a faith or a belief. Reality and ideal enter into conflict with each other. This conflict was most evident in Maoist China. Maoism had a commitment to ideal (socialism), unwilling to bow to the fact of statism. The Cultural Revolution is in essence a conflict between statism as a fact and socialism as a faith.

HENRY WANG

Socialism and Governance: A Comparison Between Maoist and Dengist Governance


It may be said that the power of officials is much less dangerous than the power of capitalists, because officials have no economic interests that are opposed to those of wage-earners. But this argument involves far too simple a theory of political human nature--a theory which orthodox socialism adopted from the classical political economy, and has tended to retain in spite of growing evidence of its falsity. Economic self-interest, and even economic class-interest, is by no means the only important political motive. Officials, whose salary is generally quite unaffected by their decisions on particular questions, are likely, if they are of average honesty, to decide according to their view of the public interest; but their view will none the less have a bias which will often lead them wrong. It is important to understand this bias before entrusting our destinies too unreservedly to government departments.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"Pitfalls of Socialism", Political Ideals


Tell me this, if socialism actually is implemented, what do you expect to get, what is going to happen, are you going to get money, a house, a car, what do you hope for? Or are you simply hoping that the rich will be brought down to the level of the poor?

NO OHNO

"A Reply to: Capitalism has failed the world: Socialism is the viable alternative", News24, August 10, 2017


Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.

THOMAS MANN

New York Times, June 18, 1950

Tags: Thomas Mann


Stripped down to its essence, and returned to its roots, socialism is an ideology of radical democracy. In an era when liberties are under attack, it seeks to empower civil society to allow participation in the decisions that affect our lives. A huge state bureaucracy, of course, can be just as alienating and undemocratic as corporate boardrooms, so we need to think hard about the new forms that social ownership could take.

BHASKAR SUNKARA

"Socialism's Future May Be Its Past", New York Times, June 26, 2017


We can't ignore socialism's loss of innocence over the past century. We may reject the version of Lenin and the Bolsheviks as crazed demons and choose to see them as well-intentioned people trying to build a better world out of a crisis, but we must work out how to avoid their failures.

BHASKAR SUNKARA

"Socialism's Future May Be Its Past", New York Times, June 26, 2017


Real socialism is inside man. It wasn't born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can't say it is finished.

DARIO FO

London Times, April 6, 1992

Tags: Dario Fo


Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.

LEN DEIGHTON

Funeral in Berlin


Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Daily Telegraph, June 16, 1992


Democracy is the road to socialism.

KARL MARX

attributed, Communism

Tags: Karl Marx


By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

IAN MCEWAN

City Limits, May 27, 1983


The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization. The time has come to regenerate society -- we are on the eve of universal change.

EUGENE V. DEBS

open letter to the American Railway Union, Chicago Railway Times, January 1, 1897

Tags: Eugene V. Debs


Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

RONALD WRIGHT

America & Americans


Socialism provides safety in numbers. And that's OK, if you don't mind trading your name--your identity and individualism--for a number.

JAROD KINTZ

99 Cents for Some Nonsense


Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.

EARL WARREN

Address to National Press Club in Washington DC, April 1953


Either this organisation of injustice with its entire machine of oppressive laws and privileged institutions, must disappear, or else the proletariat is condemned to eternal slavery. This is the quintessence of the Socialist idea, whose germs can be found in the instinct of every serious thinking worker.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The Policy of the Internationl: to which is added an essay on "The Two Camps"

Tags: Mikhail Bakunin


The socialist pretends to have glimpsed paradise on earth. Those who decline the invitation to embrace the vision are not just ungrateful: they are traitors to the cause of human perfection. Dissent is therefore not mere disagreement but treachery. Treachery is properly met not with arguments but (as circumstances permit) the guillotine, the concentration camp, the purge.

ROGER KIMBALL

The New Criterion