SOCIALISM QUOTES

quotations about socialism

Socialism quote

If Socialism is what its friends say it is, it should be commended; if it is what its enemies say it is, it should be condemned.

FRANKLIN VERZELIUS NEWTON PAINTER

attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism


Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

ÉMILE DURKHEIM

Le socialisme

Tags: Emile Durkheim


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)"


I pass the test that says a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head.

WILLIAM CASEY

attributed, Washington Post, May 7, 1987


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

Tags: Alexander Solzhenitsyn


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

Tags: Mikhail Bakunin


If Socialism is a legitimate form of government, why have not the forces of government evolved it? The age of experiment has long since passed. We have had repetition over and over again, but no materialization of Socialism. Government is purely human, and until there is a new creation there will never be anything new in government.

JOHN CALHOUN TUTT

attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism


In its early days, socialism was a revolutionary movement of which the object was the liberation of the wage-earning classes and the establishment of freedom and justice. The passage from capitalism to the new régime was to be sudden and violent: capitalists were to be expropriated without compensation, and their power was not to be replaced by any new authority. Gradually a change came over the spirit of socialism. In France, socialists became members of the government, and made and unmade parliamentary majorities. In Germany, social democracy grew so strong that it became impossible for it to resist the temptation to barter away some of its intransigeance in return for government recognition of its claims. In England, the Fabians taught the advantage of reform as against revolution, and of conciliatory bargaining as against irreconcilable antagonism. The method of gradual reform has many merits as compared to the method of revolution, and I have no wish to preach revolution. But gradual reform has certain dangers, to wit, the ownership or control of businesses hitherto in private hands, and by encouraging legislative interference for the benefit of various sections of the wage-earning classes. I think it is at least doubtful whether such measures do anything at all to contribute toward the ideals which inspired the early socialists and still inspire the great majority of those who advocate some form of socialism.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"Pitfalls of Socialism", Political Ideals


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

Tags: Raymond Williams


Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Popular Government

Tags: William Howard Taft


The right still denounces socialism as an economic system that will lead to misery and privation, but with less emphasis on the political authoritarianism that often went hand in hand with socialism in power. This may be because elites today do not have democratic rights at the forefront of their minds -- perhaps because they know that the societies they run are hard to justify on those terms.

BHASKAR SUNKARA

"Socialism's Future May Be Its Past", New York Times, June 26, 2017


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


I think it's wrong that only one percent of the people should own ninety percent of the country.

SALLY WENTWORTH

Summer Fire


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


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


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


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 annihilates family life, for instance. With the abolition of private property, marriage in its present form must disappear. This is part of the programme. Individualism accepts this and makes it fine. It converts the abolition of legal restraint into a form of freedom that will help the full development of personality, and make the love of man and woman more wonderful, more beautiful, and more ennobling.

OSCAR WILDE

"The Soul of Man Under Socialism", The Essays of Oscar Wilde


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


Socialism is also unselfishness embraced as an axiom.

ROGER KIMBALL

The New Criterion