#capitalism

Free markets and capitalism are predicated upon the definition of greed as altruistic in economics". ~R. Alan Woods [2012] ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#capitalism #free-enterprise #free-markets #greed-good #r-alan-woods

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#class #failed-systems #greed #dreams

Femininity itself has become a brand, a narrow and shrinking formula of commoditised identity which can be sold back to women who have become alienated from their own power as living, loving, labouring beings. ↗

— Laurie Penny

#feminism #women #love

Life is about means not ends. There is no utopia to be gained, there is no end-state that is static and eternal, once accomplished. This was one of the great lies of communism. Likewise, capitalism offers the great deception that thanks to its machinations everyone will be richer in the future, thus justifying gross inequality and humiliation today. ↗

— Carne Ross

#communism #politics #utopia #change

The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that. ↗

— John Burdett

#capitalism #economics #politics #western-civilization #inspirational

America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products. ↗

— Thomas L. Friedman

#capitalism #economics #freedom #liberty #politics

Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation. ↗

— Eugene V. Debs

#centers #chicago #commercial #great #habitation

Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology… we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. ↗

— Slavoj Žižek

#freedom #ideology #language #freedom

Latter-day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdivided, made sophisticated. Within good, there's fashionable good and unfashionable good, and ditto for bad. Within fashionable good, there's formal and then there's casual; there's hip, there's cool, there's trendy, there's snobbish. Mix 'n' match. Like pulling on a Missoni sweater over Trussardi slacks and Pollini shoes, you can now enjoy hybrid styles of morality. It's the way of the world -- philosophy starting to look more and more like business administration. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#morality #philosophy #society #business

If I had to give a definition of capitalism I would say: the process whereby American girls turn into American women. ↗

— Christopher Hampton

#american women #capitalism #definition #give #had