Capitalist Economy Quotes

• Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Liberty, Libertarian, Laissez Faire

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• Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college.

  Noam Chomsky

  Home, Kids, College

  "Plutonomy and the Precariat" by Noam Chomsky, www.thenation.com. May 8, 2012.

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• The organized labor movement as it is constituted today is as much a concomitant of a capitalist economy as is capital. Organized labor is predicated upon the basic premise of collective bargaining between employers and employees. This premise can obtain only for an employer-employee type of society. If the labor movement is to maintain its own identity and security, it must of necessity protect that kind of society.

  Saul Alinsky

  Identity, Movement, Organized Labor

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Reveille for Radicals”, p.27, Vintage

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• Workers do not strike every day, they cannot do that the way they function in the capitalist economy. The way they have to live by selling their labor power makes that impossible.

  Ernest Mandel

  Way, Impossible, Selling

  Ernest Mandel (1994). “Revolutionary Marxism and social reality in the 20th century: collected essays”, Humanities Press Intl

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• The desire for an increase of wealth can be satisfied through exchange, which is the only method possible in a capitalist economy, or by violence and petition as in a militarist society, where the strong acquire by force, the weak by petitioning.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Strong, Desire, Violence

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist”, p.336, VM eBooks

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• Our tragedy today is not just that millions of people who called themselves communist or socialist were physically liquidated in Vietnam, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, not just that China and Russia, after all that revolution, have become capitalist economies, not just that the working class has been ruined in the United States and its unions dismantled, not just that Greece has been brought to its knees, or that Cuba will soon be assimilated into the free market - it is also that the language of the Left, the discourse of the Left, has been marginalised and is sought to be eradicated.

  Arundhati Roy

  Iran, Class, Iraq

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Capitalism has created a situation called scarcity. And that scarcity is not natural, it's socially induced. Along with that sense of scarcity, or feeling of scarcity, is a feeling of economic insecurity. Along with that is a feeling of deprivation... And unless we can demonstrate that that feeling is not justified technologically, we will not be able to speak intelligently to the great majority of people and reorganize our economy so that we really know what needs are rational and human and what have been created, almost fetishisticaly, by the capitalist economy.

  Murray Bookchin

  People, Feelings, Insecurity

  Source: robertgraham.wordpress.com

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• Productivity-the amount of output delivered per hour of work in the economy-is often viewed as the engine of progress in modern capitalist economies. Output is everything. Time is money. The quest for increased productivity occupies reams of academic literature and haunts the waking hours of C.E.O.s and finance ministers.

  Tim Jackson

  Progress, Literature, Quests

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• What both the state and the capitalist economy oppose is an understanding of what might be called "the true nature of things" (using the phrase without metaphysical pretensions), especially injustices and exploitative practices.

  Richard A. Falk

  Practice, Understanding, Phrases

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The crucial role of the rich in a capitalist economy is... to invest; to provide unencumbered and unbureaucratized cash.

  George Gilder

  Roles, Cash, Rich

  George F. Gilder (1981). “Wealth & Poverty”, Ics Press

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• Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy. If we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist.

  Peter Singer

  Jobs, Perfect, Doe

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• A capitalist economy hums when leading businessmen are bubbling with animal spirits and are prepared to sink their money into risky ventures.

  Paul Johnson

  Animal, Venture, Spirit

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• In every capitalist economy there are anti-capitalist movements, activists, and even political parties; in a way, that there are no longer anti-democratic movements, activists, and parties.

  Geoff Mulgan

  Party, Political, Movement

  Geoff Mulgan (2015). “The Locust and the Bee: Predators and Creators in Capitalism's Future”, p.4, Princeton University Press

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• A genuine Left doesn't consider anyone's suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom.... Goodbye to all that.

  Robin Morgan

  Goodbye, Men, Suffering

  Robin Morgan (2014). “The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches”, p.37, Open Road Media

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• No company has a permanent consumer franchise. No one has the only game in town. The never-ending cycle of destruction and change inherent in a capitalist economy always provides new opportunities for those with determination, goals and concentration.

  Harvey Mackay

  Determination, Opportunity, Service Culture

  Harvey Mackay (1996). “Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, & Outnegotiate Your Competition”, Ballantine Books

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• We may now have reached a point where this gap in our make-up has become unsustainable; partly because what in the past would have counted as material plenty has become the norm for the majority in much of the world; and partly because the slow retreat of religion that coincided with the spread of a capitalist economy has left a gaping hole in millions of people's lives. (Geoff Mulgan)

  Dalai Lama

  Spiritual, Past, People

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• Apart from their work and production, households perform other important economic functions. Most CONSUMPTION occurs within the household. ... In developed capitalist economies, private consumption spending accounts for half or more of GDP.

  Jim Stanford

  Gdp, Important, Half

  Jim Stanford (2008). “Economics for everyone: a short guide to the economics of capitalism”, Pluto Pr

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• As a matter of fact, capitalist economy is not and cannot be stationary. Nor is it merely expanding in a steady manner. It is incessantly being revolutionized from within by new enterprise, i.e., by the intrusion of new commodities or new methods of production or new commercial opportunities into the industrial structure as it exists at any moment.

  Joseph A. Schumpeter

  Opportunity, Matter, Facts

  Joseph A. Schumpeter (2013). “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”, p.31, Routledge

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• Between the Great Depression and the 1970s, private business was viewed with suspicion even in most capitalist economies. Businesses were, so the story goes, seen as anti-social agents whose profit-seeking needed to be restrained for other, supposedly loftier, goals, such as justice, social harmony, protection of the weak and even national glory.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Justice, Goal, Stories

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• No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Usury, Sin, Investment

  Barbara Tuchman (2017). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.66, Penguin UK

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• In my teens I saw the world in only black and white. Now I know that most things exist in a certain gray area. Though it took a while to get here, I now call this gray area home. I once believed that participating in a capitalist economy would be the death of me, but now realize that agonizing over the political implications of every move I make isn’t exactly living.

  Sophia Amoruso

  Moving, Home, Black And White

  Sophia Amoruso (2014). “#GIRLBOSS”, p.72, Penguin

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• Will capitalist economies operate at full employment in the absence of routine intervention? Certainly not.

  Janet Yellen

  Routine, Employment, Absence

  "Why Janet Yellen Should Be Fed Chair (In 4 Quotes)" By Mark Gongloff, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 16, 2013.

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