Capitalism as an economic and political system involves private and corporate ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, with wealth and investment decisions mainly in the hands of individuals. Critics of capitalism point out that such decisions are thus often in the interest of those individuals over the common good, and that those with more wealth have more political as well as economic power, leading to inevitable increasing inequality of power and wealth, and that workers whose labor is essential to production and distribution have little political and economic voice in such a system. Most economies today are more mixed, with government limiting some of the choices of corporations and individuals with wealth.
Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises–War and Shopping–simply will not work.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country … corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow.
Crony capitalism is essentially a condition in which… public officials are giving favours to people in the private sector in payment of political favours.
The most eloquent eulogy of capitalism was made by its greatest enemy. Marx is only anti-capitalist in so far as capitalism is out of date.
The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
Capitalism has not always existed in the world and will not always exist in the world.
Well, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you’re just going to keep buying and selling things until there’s nothing else to buy and sell, which means gobbling up the planet.
When I was saying, ‘White people go to hell,’ I never had trouble finding a publisher. But when I say, ‘Black and white unite and fight, destroy capitalism,’ then you suddenly become unreasonable.
[Prison] relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.
Capitalism is, fundamentally, an economic system that promotes inequality.
Unlike economics, whose sole preoccupation in our finance-obsessed era is the near-term profit motive, history offers a way to place our tiny lifespans in a narrative that spans dozens of generations – perhaps even reaching into a future where capitalism is no longer our dominant form of economic organization.
Ethics should precede economics… We know this because we’ve seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products — from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of greater and greater profits.
Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.
I am a Maoist sympathiser. I’m not a Maoist ideologue, because the communist movements in history have been just as destructive as capitalism.
When you live in the United States, with the roar of the free market, the roar of this huge military power, the roar of being at the heart of empire, it’s hard to hear the whispering of the rest of the world. And I think many US citizens want to. I don’t think that all of them necessarily are co-conspirators in this concept of empire. And those who are not, need to listen to other stories in the world – other voices, other people.
The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination- an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfilment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the water in the rivers, the trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain?
Living as we do in a white-supremacist capitalist and patriarchal context that can best exploit us when we lack a firm grounding in self and identity, choosing “wellness” is an act of political resistance.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
You can talk about capitalism and communism and all that sort of thing, but the important thing is the struggle everybody is engaged in to get better living conditions, and they are not interested too much in government.
Capitalism does a number of things very well: it helps create an entrepreneurial spirit; it gets people motivated to come up with new ideas, and that’s a good thing.
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Capitalism has shortfalls. It doesn’t necessarily take care of the poor, and it underfunds innovation, so we have to offset that.
Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It’s basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it’s wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.
We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.
Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.
Capitalism has its weaknesses. But it is capitalism that ended the stranglehold of the hereditary aristocracies, raised the standard of living for most of the world and enabled the emancipation of women.
It is no longer an unwritten law of American capitalism that industry will attempt to maintain wages at a level that allows a single wage to support a family.
The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction.
