Quotes on Socialism

Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement. It is by no means an obvious remedy for the obvious evil which the interests of that class will necessarily demand. It is a construction of theorists.

Government-to-government foreign aid promotes statism, centralized planning, socialism, dependence, pauperization, inefficiency, and waste. It prolongs the poverty it is designed to cure. Voluntary private investment in private enterprise, on the other hand, promotes capitalism, production, independence, and self-reliance.

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.

What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.

Not mythical material productive forces, but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend toward socialism and despotism is common-sense and moral courage.

To the masses, the catchwords of Socialism sound so enticing... so they will continue to work for Socialism, helping thereby to bring about the inevitable decline of the civilization which the nations of the West have taken thousands of years to build up.

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all . . . . It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tryanny of Christianity no less than Capitalism.

For it is an essential difference between capitalist and socialist production that under capitalism men provide for themselves, while under Socialism they are provided for.

A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.

One man with a gun can control 100 without one.

Socialism can only be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing toward a madhouse, one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried Individualism and found it particularly nasty.

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.