I don’t think that left to its own devices, capitalism moves along smoothly and everyone gets treated fairly in the process. Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody’s got to look over the shoulder of that child.
Since the Industrial Revolution, we tend to use technology to show our power: you know, we build high-rises, towers, big buildings that become symbols of power and capitalism. We don’t talk about how emotions and nature can be connected.
Capitalism does a number of things very well: it helps create an entrepreneurial spirit; it gets people motivated to come up with new ideas, and that’s a good thing.
Capitalism saved the world, and there is even a heretical theory now, moving up from the level of individuals to countries: countries that trade more and have more open economies are less likely to fight wars and less likely to have genocides.
As the scale of economic activity increases until capitalism affects everything, from the atmosphere to the deep ocean floor, the entire planet becomes a sacrifice zone: we all inhabit the periphery of the profit-making machine.
Nature was developed to resist the onslaughts of capitalism, but it’s really not a very good defense – rather like resisting a steamroller with a Christmas tree ornament.
When you’re young, you wonder what all these old people are droning on about, trying to impart their wisdom. It’s not relevant to you because being young is such a specific thing. Thank God for that. Thank God for the young people who go out and demonstrate against rampant capitalism or whatever.
Capitalism doesn’t care about sentimentality.
I think you hear, at least as an undertone, and it’s going to grow louder, is that we believe that capitalism is the mantra of the day and anything that creeps towards socialism is a problem.
I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism.
Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social, political and ideological system which breaks the fetters upon economic growth created under capitalism and opens the way to a new period of economic and social expansion on a much larger scale.
Capitalism has socialized production. It has brought thousands of people together in the factory and involved them in new social relationships.
Trump seems to be implementing a form of coercive capitalism – in which the president publicly picks winners and losers and uses the power of the office to force corporate leaders to make specific business decisions.
The left is back, and it’s the only path we have to get out of the spot to which the right has sunken us. Socialism builds and capitalism destroys.
Why should the idea of Western liberal democracy automatically imply unregulated free-market capitalism?
The divestment movement is a start at challenging the excesses of capitalism. It’s working to delegitimize fossil fuels and showing that they’re just as unethical as profits from the tobacco industry.
Governments don’t get elected saying, ‘We’re going to lower GDP next year,’ governments get elected on saying, ‘We’re going to increase prosperity and the happiness and the wealth of our nations.’ But that kind of capitalism will only lead to the destruction of our planet.
Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism ‘inevitably’ caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.
WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical.
It’s not difficult in South Africa for the ordinary person to see the link between capitalism and racist exploitation, and when one sees the link one immediately thinks in terms of a socialist alternative.
You’ll notice that for many progressives, taking from the rich is not simply a necessity of budgeting but a moral imperative and a tool to institute fairness that capitalism supposedly hasn’t.
Capitalism does not require us to hold a particular set of cognitive beliefs; it only requires that we act as if certain beliefs (about money, commodities etc) are true. The rituals are the beliefs, beliefs which, at the level of subjective self-description, may well be disavowed.
America has thrived on capitalism, and America will thrive again on capitalism.
Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.
In America, we don’t, in daily discourse, use the words ‘capitalism’ or ‘socialism.’ They’ve been kind of nonexistent words, I would say, amongst the general public.
Here’s what I don’t think works: An economic system that was founded in the 16th century and another that was founded in the 19th century. I’m tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century; we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.
Teenagers are in some ways the best readers because their imaginations haven’t been narrowed down by boring things like jobs and the realities of money and capitalism.
I am an ardent supporter of capitalism – but I also understand that while individuals have inalienable, God-given rights, corporations do not.
When it comes to talking to your kids about economics, start early beause the progressive culture-makers are starting earlier than you think! Cartoon storylines regularly denegrate competition and other foundational principles of capitalism.
Capitalism and power politics have made our generation creatively sluggish, and our vital art is mired in a broad bourgeois philistinism.
The trouble with capitalism as a system is that only those who have or can get capital can make it work for them, and that leaves out damn near all of us.
Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.
We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet. However, that requires a change in lifestyle, a change in the economic model: We must go from capitalism to socialism.
We may forget it, among the glitz of the Christmas lights, but capitalism can be a profoundly moral force.
While admirers of capitalism, we also to a certain extent believe it has limitations that require government intervention in markets to make them work.
Obama had to save the banks, sure, but he didn’t have to save the bankers and the shareholders and the bondholders. We broke the rules of capitalism in order to save those at the top – as we always do.
I think the growing interest in stakeholder capitalism stems from companies genuinely invested in doing good for our world, because it’s the right thing to do and because businesses who take this approach are stronger.
We do live in an environment of crony capitalism, and the main reason we do is that loopholes are for sale, and both parties have their hands out through those loopholes.
Black people have been marginalized and kept away from the economics of this country. I think people are starting to understand that and are trying to figure out how we can change that and allow everybody to join in this game of capitalism.
Market capitalism survived and prospered after the boom-bust industrial revolution of the 19th century, and the Great Depression and world wars of the 20th century. It will recover from the financial panic of 2008-09 and Obamanomics.
Anti-capitalism is nothing new in Hollywood. From ‘Wall-E’ to ‘Avatar,’ corporations are routinely depicted as evil. The contradiction of corporate-funded films denouncing corporations is an irony capitalism cannot just absorb, but thrive on. Yet this anti-capitalism is only allowed within limits.
As a social anarchist, I believe that capitalism itself is an inherently exploitative hierarchical situation – you do have a boss, you do have somebody in charge.
There’s nothing pure about capitalism.
From a systematic standpoint, I think that capitalism is the best system. I can spend a lot of time explaining why I like communism, but it is actually not a good solution. Nor is socialism. So, capitalism is the right model.
It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression.
One might have thought that the most significant change in the film industry that would come about with a transition from the communist economy to capitalism would fundamentally concern the sources of funding.
There’s a big battle going on in the country in regards to capitalism and socialism, and it’s a debate that deserves attention.
Capitalism and market forces are very powerful in producing wealth and innovation. But we need to ensure that these forces act in the common interest.
Capitalism historically has been a very dynamic force, and behind that force is technical progress, innovation, new ideas, new products, new technologies, and new methods of managing teams.
There is no freedom without groceries. There are no groceries without freedom. What people call ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are actually one and inseparable. It’s a virtuous circle.
The moral angle to the foreclosure crisis – and, of course, in capitalism we’re not supposed to be concerned with the moral stuff, but let’s mention it anyway – shows a culture that is slowly giving in to a futuristic nightmare ideology of computerized greed and unchecked financial violence.
Capitalism in and of itself is based on the monetising of human labour, and the first evidence of that is slavery. And that has never changed. We are all participating in that.
