#socialism

Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom; socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. ↗

— Tocqueville

#libery #socialism #equality

Socialists are convinced socialism will work if it's only managed by the right people. It's one of the reasons so many socialist countries wind up led by dictators. Socialist leaders inevitably become convinced that only they can manage the state properly, so it would be folly, they reason, to give up their hard-won power. That's how socialism always seems to wind up with people like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao in charge. ↗

— Tom King

#politics #socialism #leadership

Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#economy #politcal-pandering #socialism #music

One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England. ↗

— George Orwell

#leftists #socialism #nature

I don't understand why it has to be either - or - either socialism or democracy. Why can't we combine things to get the best of each system? ↗

— Tim Allen

#combine #democracy #each #either #get

There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure. ↗

— Will Durant

#cure #little #little money #money #nothing

The great sin was adopting the 21st Century's Socialism, something that not even its founder, Ditrich knows exactly what it is, though he says it is under construction. ↗

— Rafael Correa

#century #construction #even #exactly #founder

Almost the only persons who may be said to comprehend even approximately the significance, principles, and purposes of Socialism are the chief leaders of the extreme wings of the Socialistic forces, and perhaps a few of the money kings themselves. ↗

— Benjamin Tucker

#approximately #chief #comprehend #even #extreme

The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive 'policies' and 'Plans' of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word 'socialism', but what else can one call it? ↗

— H. G. Wells

#america #attempt #avert #call #collapse

I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling — which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes — can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society. Anyway, the war against this kind of plunder has not waited for the command of these gentlemen. The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. Long before the Revolution of February 1848 — long before the appearance even of socialism itself — France had provided police, judges, gendarmes, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds for the purpose of fighting illegal plunder. The law itself conducts this war, and it is my wish and opinion that the law should always maintain this attitude toward plunder. ↗

— Frédéric Bastiat

#plunder #socialism #theft #attitude