A desire for social connection is fundamentally hardwired into our psychology, and so being deprived of it has devastating mental and physical consequences. Yet we live in a society which has become ever more fragmented and atomised.
Neoliberalism has left Britain's boss classes drunk on triumphalism, paying themselves record salaries and bonuses while their workers are imprisoned by poverty and insecurity. It was never going to last.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques the excesses of the wealthy in a neoliberal system, highlighting the resulting inequality and its unsustainability.
Owen Jonesβ quote analyzes the consequences of neoliberalism, suggesting that the greed and triumphalism exhibited by the upper classes in Britain, symbolized by exorbitant salaries and bonuses, stands in stark contrast to the struggles faced by workers who endure poverty and insecurity. It underscores the notion that while this system may seem profitable for a select few, such extreme inequalities and imbalances in wealth distribution are ultimately untenable and destined to collapse.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about economic reform, one could use this quote to illustrate the pitfalls of unregulated capitalism.
More from Owen Jones
All quotes βHere in Britain, black people are disproportionately targeted, arrested and imprisoned for drug offences, while organised and violent crime are granted a massive source of revenue.
Socialism is the democratisation of every level of society, or it is nothing. It is based on an understanding that the concentration of wealth and power leaves democracy hollowed out, and that simply trooping to a polling station every few years is an insufficient counterweight to the behemoths of global capital.
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Holiness of life is not the privilege of a chosen few - it is the obligation, the call, and the will of God for every Christian.
The future of religion is connected with the possibility of developing a faith in the possibilities of human experience and human relationships that will create a vital sense of the solidarity of human interests and inspire action to make that sense a reality.
Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.
Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.
He had possessed the arrogance of a tall member of a short race, with no obligation save to be tall.
The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is what should be. Now, if you're taught to live up to a what should be that never existed - only an occult superstition, no proof of this should be - then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!