David Harvey Quotes

Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.

There is no alternative to class struggle.

The capitalist class rules but does not govern: it contents itself with ruling the government.

If capitalism begins as the practical idealism of the aspiring bourgeoisie, it ends ... as an orgy of materialism.

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The decision involves nothing less than a surrender of the taxing power to the moneyed class

Historical capitalism is a materialist civilization.

The masters thought they were loved until one day one of their favorites farted loudly while serving dinner and the next day was gone. The very first manifestation of the classless society is the disappearance of the servant class.

I get up every morning and think...today I'm going to end capitalism.

All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital , and allowed to live only so far as the interest to the ruling class requires it.

Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement.

The essence of capitalism is expressed in two of its basic features: a) profit maximization and b) market competition. In their abstract formulations none of them was supposed to have anything conspiratorial against the poor. But in real life they turn out to be the "killers" of the poor - by making rich the richer and poor the poorer.

Social change rarely comes about through the efforts of the disenfranchised. The middle class creates social revolutions.

The word "Capitalism" expresses, for our age, the sum of all evil. Even the opponents of Socialism are dominated by socialist ideas.

The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution - particularly the Socialist idea - is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements

There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.

These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

Capitalism is a social cancer. It has always been a social cancer. It is the disease of society. It is the malignancy of society.

What is economics? A science invented by the upper class in order to acquire the fruits of the labor of the underclass

Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.

The workmen's revolution, with the terrors of destruction and murder, not only threatens us, but we have already been living upon its verge during the last thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have been postponing the crisis. The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports all this is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves.

The Democrats tell all the poor people and all of the middle class that they're only where they are 'cause the rich have cheated them, exploited them, or stolen all their money. The way they're gonna make it equal is to take from those people who have just won life's lottery, the premise being that the poor and the rich and the middle class are gonna get the money.

Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.

The economic owning class is always the political ruling class.