We have created an industrial order geared to automatism, where feeble-mindedness, native or acquired, is necessary for docile productivity in the factory; and where a pervasive neurosis is the final gift of the meaningless life that issues forth at the other end. Lewis Mumford
Comradeship, dignity, amorosity, love, solidarity, fraternity, friendship, ethics: all these names stand in contrast to the commodified, monetised relations of capitalism, all describe relations developed in struggles against capitalism and which can be seen as anticipating or creating a society beyond capitalism. John Holloway, Crack Capitalism
Why do have an economy where the poor have to pay so the rich won’t lose money? Reds 1981 starring Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton & Jack Nicholson & Gene Hackman & Edward Herrmann & Jerzy Kosinski & Paul Sorvino & Maureen Stapleton & Nicolas Coster & William Daniels & E Emmet Walsh & Ian Wolfe & Bessie Love et al, director Warren Beatty, him to her
What does a capitalist do? ... What does he make besides money? ... The workers do all the work, don’t they? Well what if they got organised? ibid. Reed
I am convinced that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism, the path is socialism. Hugo Chavez
The left is back, and it’s the only path we have to get out of the spot to which the right has sunken us. Socialism builds and capitalism destroys. Hugo Chavez
The men in Washington should be at the forefront of technology, the forefront of human study, the forefront of crime, all factors that shape human behaviour ... And we have the resources today. To house everyone. Build hospitals all over the world. Build schools all over the world. The finest equipment in labs for teaching and doing medical research. So, you see, we have all that. But we’re in a monetary system. And in a monetary system there is profit. Jacque Fresco, founder & director of Venus Project
War, poverty, corruption, hunger, misery, human suffering will not change in a monetary system. Jacque Fresco
Capitalism is against the things that we say we believe in – democracy, freedom of choice, fairness. It’s not about any of those things now. It’s about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed. Michael Moore
Men have transformed the world with their knowledge. The short lean wheat has been made big and productive. Little sour apples have grown large and sweet, and that old grape that grew among the trees and fed the big birds has mothered a thousand varieties, red and black, green and pale pink, purple and yellow; and each variety with its own flavour.
The men who work in the experimental farms have made new fruits; nectarines and forty kinds of plums, walnuts with paper shells and always they work, selecting, grafting, changing, driving themselves, driving the earth to produce.
But men who graft the trees and make the seeds fertile and big can find no way to make the hungry eat their produce.
A million people hungry, needing the fruit – and kerosene spread over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country.
The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back. They come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes flow by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze.
And in the eyes of the people there is a failure and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
The scale of Britain’s growing inequality is revealed today by a report from a leading charity showing that the country’s five richest families now own more wealth than the poorest 20% of the population.
Oxfam urged the chancellor George Osborne to use Wednesday’s budget to make a fresh assault on tax avoidance and introduce a living wage in a report highlighting how a handful of the super-rich, headed by the Duke of Westminster, have more money and financial assets than 12.6 million Britons put together.
The development charity, which has opened UK programmes to tackle poverty, said the government should explore the possibility of a wealth tax after revealing how income gains and the benefits of rising asset prices had disproportionately helped those at the top. Guardian online article Larry Elliott 17th March 2014, ‘Britain's Five Richest Families Worth More Than the Poorest 20%’
The people of Nicaragua were suffering oppression. This made us develop an awareness which eventually led us to commit ourselves to the struggle against the domination of the capitalists of our country in collusion with the US. government, i.e. imperialism. Daniel Ortega
China is the new bad guy because they are building a new power station every four days. But a quarter of that energy makes stuff for us; western companies pay Chinese workers crap wages to make crap plastic toys then ship them to Europe and wrap them in more plastic. The Age of Stupid 2009 starring Pete Postlethwaite & Jehangir Wadia & Layefa Malin & Al Duvernay & Fernand Pareau & Jamila and Adnan Bayyoud & Piers Guy & Mark Lynas & Mohamed Nasheed & David King & George Monbiot & Richard Heinberg & Ed Miliband et al, director Franny Armstrong
Plastic toy and plastic wrap goes into plastic bags. ibid.
The message was: US corporations have the right to pollute the entire planet. The people and the environment don’t matter. Bianca Jagger, 2001
These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the god of the mountains, lift them to the almighty dollar. John Muir
The birth of the nation state and the rise of capitalism would lead to a remarkable reversal of fortunes. This is history’s greatest revelation. How it was that Europeans, not Chinese, came to run the world. Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? I Competition, Channel 4 2011
Competition, markets, profits, capitalism. These are the things China once turned its back on. Well not any more. ibid.
It would have seemed equally fantastic in 1420 to have predicted western ascendancy. The point is that in the course of the fifteenth century Europeans discovered the joys of competition both economic and political. And in a competition for control of the Asian spice trade capitalism was born. And with it the foundation for a world dominated by western civilisation. ibid.
The big mystery is why the world’s most successful capitalist economy is based on a foundation of more or less painless economic failure. Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money e1: Dreams of Avarice, Channel 4 2008
From 1996 to 2006 there were between one and two million bankruptcy cases a year in the United States. ibid.
Ever since monopoly capital took over the world, it has kept the greater part of humanity in poverty, dividing all the profits among the group of the most powerful countries. The standard of living in those countries is based on the extreme poverty of our countries. To raise the living standards of the underdeveloped nations, therefore, we must fight against imperialism. And each time a country is torn away from the imperialist tree, it is not only a partial battle won against the main enemy but it also contributes to the real weakening of that enemy, and is one more step toward the final victory. Che Guevara
In capitalist society individuals are controlled by a pitiless law usually beyond their comprehension. The alienated human specimen is tied to society as a whole by an invisible umbilical cord: the law of value. This law acts upon all aspects of one's life, shaping its course and destiny. Che Guevara
We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism – and it must be defeated in a world of confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capitals, raw materials, technicians and cheap labour, and to which they export new capitals – instruments of domination – arms and all kinds of articles; thus submerging us in an absolute dependence. Che Guevara
Cuba has ... been condemned for not allowing its people to flee the island. That so many want to leave Cuba is treated as proof that Cuban socialism is a harshly repressive system, rather than that the US embargo has made life difficult in Cuba. That so many millions more want to leave capitalist countries like Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, El Salvador, Philippines, South Korea, Macedonia, and others too numerous to list is never treated as grounds for questioning the free-market system that inflicts such misery on the Third World. Michael Parenti
The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralised humanity is kept in line with drugs, television and armed force. Michael Parenti
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction. Leon Trotsky
The world says: ‘You have needs – satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.’ This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The world of investing can be a jungle. Bulls. Bears. Danger at every turn. That’s why we are Stratton Oakmont pride ourselves on being the best. The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 starring Leonardo di Caprio & Jonah Hill & Margot Robbie & Matthew McConaughey & Kyle Chandler & Rob Reiner & Jonn Favreau & Jean Dujardin & Joanna Lumley & P J Byrne et al, director Martin Scorsese
Oh and I love drugs. (Stocks & Capitalism & Drugs) ibid.
The key to success in this racket is this little baby right here – it’s called cocaine. ibid.