SOCIALISM QUOTES

quotations about socialism

Socialism quote

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


Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.

KARL MARX

The Communist Manifesto


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


Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

speech at the Scottish Unionist Conference, Perth, Scotland, May 28, 1948

Tags: Winston Churchill


Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean--power over people, power to the State.

MARGARET THATCHER

speech to Conservative Central Council, March 15, 1986

Tags: Margaret Thatcher


I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society. It took some time before I recognized this as no more than a beautiful dream; that freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realize equality endangers freedom; and that, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.

KARL R. POPPER

Unended Quest


Socialism is a scareword they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

speech, October 10, 1952

Tags: Harry S. Truman


The ripeness of society for Socialism is not to be disproved by the number of wrecks and ruins which abound.

JOHN SPARGO

Elements of Socialism


A little socialism
Don't scare me one bit!
We could do a whole lot worse
Than Europe or Canada.

LEN CHANDLER

"Which Side Are You On? (Civil Rights Version)"


Socialism is like Neil Diamond music. It's not good and belongs in the past, yet there's a group of people who think that it will eventually catch on if only they keep playing it.

JEFFREY EVAN BROOKS

attributed, "Socialism: The Next Social Revolution", Alternate History Discussion Board, October 12, 2013


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


It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.

ALDOUS HUXLEY

The Perennial Philosophy

Tags: Aldous Huxley


In socialism of the future ... what counts is the whole, the community of the Volk. The individual and his life play only a subsidiary role. He can be sacrificed--he is prepared to sacrifice himself should the whole demand it.

ADOLF HITLER

attributed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant


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


Democracy is the road to socialism.

KARL MARX

attributed, Communism

Tags: Karl Marx


The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

speech in the House of Commons, "Demobilisation", October 22, 1945

Tags: Winston Churchill


Socialism is in a way the shadow of capitalism. Nothing guarantees the future of socialism so much as capitalism, because socialism is capitalism's self-criticism.

RICHARD WOLFF

interview, Fox Business, August 2017


As we know, socialism is calculational chaos. Rational appraisement and allocation are eternally elusive. It is a gigantic negative-sum game in which each player quickly grabs a piece of the pie, and all the while the pie shrinks before the players' eyes.

LARRY J. SECHREST

Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the Austrian Scholars Conference in Auburn, Alabama, "The Anti-Capitalists: Barbarians at the Gate", March 15, 2008


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


A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

LUDWIG VON MISES

Human Action

Tags: Ludwig von Mises