#capitalism

A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. ↗

— Ron Paul

#capitalism #central #central bank #cherishes #contracts

Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#capitalism #force #government #money #philosophy

Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool. ↗

— Paul McCartney

#mercenary #music #music

Occult Theft,--Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,--corrupts the body and soul of man, to the last fibre of them. And the guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists ↗

— John Ruskin

#communism #economics #respect

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas. ↗

— Karl Marx

#class-struggle #marx #philosophy #political-science #science

The Master said, “A true gentleman is one who has set his heart upon the Way. A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or modest meals is not even worth conversing with.” (Analects 4.9) ↗

— Confucius

#china #consumerism #greed #materialism #simplicity

Wake up America! The insurance companies took over health care! Wake up America! The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing! Wake up America! The speculators took over Wall Street! Wake up America! They want your Social Security! Wake up America! Multinational corporations took over our trade policies! Wake up America! We went into Iraq for oil! WAKE UP AMERICA! ↗

— Dennis Kucinich

#critisism #incompetence #wake-up-call #iraq

The capitalist empires, with their affirmations of sacrifice for the free world, of defence of private enterprise, of safeguarding order from subversion and chaos, are in fact defending their political prestige and the economic interests arising from it; they are indeed at the service of economic power and the international trusts. The socialist empires for their part are hard and intransigent, they do not allow pluralism, they impose dialectical materialism, demand blind obedience to the party, set up a regime of total and permanent insecurity and fear, just like the fascist dictatorships of the extreme right. ↗

— Hélder Câmara

#communism #politics #communism

In a time in which Communist regimes have been rightfully discredited and yet alternatives to neoliberal capitalist societies are unwisely dismissed, I defend the fundamental claim of Marxist theory: there must be countervailing forces that defend people's needs against the brutality of profit driven capitalism. ↗

— Cornel West

#marxism #capitalism

I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism. ↗

— Warren Buffett

#american #capacity #capitalism #factor #getting