SOCIALISM QUOTES II

quotations about socialism

Socialism quote

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


Any fresh survey of men's political actions shows that, in those who have enough energy to be politically effective, love of power is a stronger motive than economic self-interest. Love of power actuates the great millionaires, who have far more money than they can spend, but continue to amass wealth merely in order to control more and more of the world's finance. Love of power is obviously the ruling motive of many politicians. It is also the chief cause of wars, which are admittedly almost always a bad speculation from the mere point of view of wealth. For this reason, a new economic system which merely attacks economic motives and does not interfere with the concentration of power is not likely to effect any very great improvement in the world. This is one of the chief reasons for regarding state socialism with suspicion.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"Pitfalls of Socialism", Political Ideals


Democracy is the road to socialism.

KARL MARX

attributed, Communism

Tags: Karl Marx


I believe that for the past twenty years there has been a creeping socialism spreading in the United States.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

speech to Republican leaders in Custer State Park, South Dakota, June 11, 1953

Tags: Dwight D. Eisenhower


Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.

ZYGMUNT BAUMAN

Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman

Tags: Zygmunt Bauman


Socialism is also unselfishness embraced as an axiom.

ROGER KIMBALL

The New Criterion


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


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


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


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


To make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing.

OSCAR WILDE

Pall Mall Gazette, February 15, 1889

Tags: Oscar Wilde


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


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


As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

GEORGE ORWELL

The Road to Wigan Pier

Tags: George Orwell


But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing towards a madhouse, one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried Individualism and found it nasty.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Alarms and Discursions

Tags: G. K. Chesterton


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


Democrat Socialism, like Nationalist Socialism, is nothing more than Marxist Socialism repackaged.

MARK ALEXANDER

"Tear Down the University of Virginia!", The Patriot Post, August 14, 2017


For billions of people throughout the optimistically styled "developing world," socialism is a dreary reality. Such countries mostly adopted socialism before accruing capital for socialists to squander, and as a result, socialism has kept them in permanent impoverishment.

CHARLES SCALIGER

"The Fruits of Socialism", The New American, August 14, 2017


I am opposed to Socialism because I believe that it attempts to do by legislative enactment, what must come through an evolutionary process. I believe that we are now ready for a long evolutionary jump, but not so far forward as some of our Socialist brethren would like to jump. I desire to go as far toward human justice and good will toward men, as anyone, but I do not feel that we should start and stop, because we are not ready to go the whole distance. I would start and go but one day's journey at a time.

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism


I, who said forty years ago that we should have had Socialism already but for the Socialists, am quite willing to drop the name if dropping it will help me to get the thing.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism

Tags: George Bernard Shaw