SOCIALISM QUOTES
quotations about socialism
Great Socialist statesmen aren't made, they're stillborn.
SAKI
The Unbearable Bassington
In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion.
ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN
interview, St. Austin Review, February 2003
Democracy is the road to socialism.
KARL MARX
attributed, Communism
In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country.
GEORGE ORWELL
preface to the Ukrainian edition, Animal Farm
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
Socialism can only arrive by bicycle.
JOSE ANTONIO VIERA GALLO
foreword, Energy and Equity
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
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
We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"Reasoned Proposal to the Central Committee of the League for Peace and Freedom", September 1867
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, when the last word is said, is merely a new economic and political system whereby more men can get food to eat.
JACK LONDON
The Human Drift
It wasn't idealism that made me, from the beginning, want a more secure and rational society. It was an intellectual judgement, to which I still hold. When I was young its name was socialism. We can be deflected by names. But the need was absolute, and is still absolute.
RAYMOND WILLIAMS
Loyalties
Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless.
KENNETH BAKER
London Observer, July 13, 1986
For my part, while I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"The Case for Socialism", In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
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
Socialism is a political vision of religious and moral import, whereas capitalism is a self-regulating system, deploying a means-end rationality. The two are in different orders of reality.
CHARLES DAVIS
"The End of Socialism?", After Socialism?: The Future of Radical Christianity
The socialist economy has become so strong, so vigorous that from the summits we have reached we can issue an open challenge of peaceful economic competition to the most powerful capitalist country--the United States of America.
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
concluding speech to twenty-second congress of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, October 27, 1961
Our governments told us that socialism was the real enemy, and that we would have freedom, but the foreign powers and corporations were the ones with real freedom, the freedom to take all the wealth generated by our work and our land and gave us only a small percentage of the scraps from the table. Their lust for power and their greed drove them to betray not only us but themselves and the word of their own God. (Open your eyes before you die.)
IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE
"Open Your Eyes"
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
The socialist pretends to have glimpsed paradise on earth. Those who decline the invitation to embrace the vision are not just ungrateful: they are traitors to the cause of human perfection. Dissent is therefore not mere disagreement but treachery. Treachery is properly met not with arguments but (as circumstances permit) the guillotine, the concentration camp, the purge.
ROGER KIMBALL
The New Criterion