#capitalism

Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others - the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison. ↗

— Eduardo Hughes Galeano

#change

Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. ↗

— Chris Hedges

#death

The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep. ↗

— Guy Debord

#death

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy. ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#democracy #neoliberalism #design

It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of Philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, it has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- free trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. ↗

— Karl Marx

#ethics #free-trade #freedom

[A] great embarrassing fact… haunts all attempts to represent the market as the highest form of human freedom: that historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft. ↗

— David Graeber

#economics #libertarianism #markets #politics #freedom

She looked at her note cards and took a breath. "Why I Love America, by Hayley McDonald's. America is the greatest group of countries in the world because we have freedom. In countries like France, where the Government isn't privatized, they still have to pay tax and do whatever the Government says, which would really suck. In USA countries, we respect individual rights and let people do whatever they want. ↗

— Max Barry

#capitalism #satire #tax #freedom

. . . then life began, and since then we remember each dumpster, abandoned house, and foot-chase by retail security. At night, after running around, plotting and scheming, our checklist items all crossed out, we paused to think — 'What to do tomorrow?' and the answer was always, 'As we please . . . ↗

— CrimethInc.

#life #society #life

Comradeship, dignity, amorosity, love, solidarity, fraternity, friendship, ethics: all these names stand in contrast to the commodified, monetised relations of capitalism, all describe relations developed in struggles against capitalism and which can be seen as anticipating or creating a society beyond capitalism. ↗

— John Holloway

#solidarity #friendship

To exploit living labour, capital must destroy dead labour which is still useful. Loving to suck warm young blood, it kills corpses. ↗

— Amadeo Bordiga

#crisis #love