Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.
Eric HobsbawmRead
Impotence therefore faces both those who believe in what amounts to a pure, stateless, market capitalism, a sort of international bourgeois anarchism, and those who believe in a planned socialism uncontaminated by private profit-seeking. Both are bankrupt. The future, like the present and the past, belongs to mixed economies in which public and private are braided together in one way or another. But how? That is the problem for everybody today, but especially for people on the left.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote discusses the failures of both pure capitalism and socialism, advocating for mixed economies.
Eric Hobsbawm highlights the inadequacies of both extreme political-economic systems: pure capitalism and planned socialism. He argues that neither can effectively address society's needs, suggesting instead the necessity for mixed economies that blend public and private sectors. This complex interplay is a challenge that society must navigate moving forward, particularly for those who lean towards leftist ideals.
Themes
EconomyCapitalismSocialismMixed EconomiesPublicPrivate
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on economic policies, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for compromise between different economic systems.
More from Eric Hobsbawm
All quotes →It is one of the ironies of this strange century that the most lasting results of the October revolution, whose object was the global overthrow of capitalism, was to save its antagonist, both in war and in peace - that is to say, by providing it with the incentive, fear, to reform itself after the Second World War, and, by establishing the popularity of economic planning, furnishing it with some of the procedures for its reform
Eric HobsbawmRead
It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they're not like the wrong Americans, who are not really Americans.
Eric HobsbawmRead
As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.
Eric HobsbawmRead
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
Eric HobsbawmRead
Similar quotes
Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.
Nhat HanhRead
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
John Quincy AdamsRead
To awaken within the dream is our purpose now. When we are awake within the dream, the ego-created earth-drama comes to an end and a more benign and wonderous dream arises.
Eckhart TolleRead
Never be satisfied with the world's standard of Christianity!
J. C. RyleRead
The opposite of compromise is character.
Frederick DouglassRead
Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt.
Henry BolingbrokeRead