Frank Zappa Quotes

Neither Capitalism nor Socialism can pretend to be an ideology. They are merely methods for dividing ownership and income.

Socialism ruins societies because it misunderstands human nature.

Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.

Property is impossible.

An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature.

The reason socialism has failed around the world every time it's been tried is because people in socialist countries have looked at the United States and have said if they can have it that good, we can. It's a failed, flawed ideology, but if you ask socialists why it's always failed, it's because the United States has stood in the way.

I think anytime that you go to the extreme of any mode of economics, be it capitalism or communism, you have these feedback mechanisms that make the system turn in on itself.

That sort of fundamentalism which treats possession of private property not as a desirable economic and personal asset but as a condition of liberty is a form of primitive religion.

Don't talk to me about socialism. What we have, we hold.

Goods which are not shared are not goods.

The capitalist process shapes things and souls for socialism.

In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.

Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will starve. Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

A Socialist Government cannot carry on a capitalist system better than the capitalists. The men bred by a capitalist system are men of affairs who understand their business. They are not apprentices.

The upholders of Capitalism are dreamers and visionaries who, instead of doing good with evil intentions do evil with the best intentions.

Capitalism did not arise because capitalists stole the land and the workmen's tools, but because it was more efficient than feudalism. It will perish because it is not merely less efficient than socialism, but actually self-destructive.

SOCIALISM—You have two cows, you give one to your neighbor; COMMUNISM—You have two cows, the government takes them both and gives you the milk; FASCISM—You have two cows, the government takes both and sells you the milk NAZISM—You have two cows, the government takes both and shoots you; CAPITALISM—You have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull; TRADE UNIONISM—You have two cows, they take them from you, shoot one, milk the other and throw the milk away; MORAL: Don't have anything to do with cows. They only bring you trouble.

The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man’s nature.

The genius of capitalism consists precisely in its lack of morality …. Deprive a capitalist of his God-given right to lie and cheat and steal, and the poor sap stands a better than even chance of becoming one of the abominable wards of the state.

We cannot remove the evils of capitalism without taking its source of power: ownership.

Communism has had its success in this century as a reaction against a certain type of unbridaled capitalism.

Labor is, on the one hand, more and more furnished by a class; Property or Capital, on the other, held and controlled by another class. Here you have workers without property—the proletariat. There you have property without work—or capital…. The workers without property are excluded from their products, from the riches they create—which accumulate in the hands of the property holders, capitalists and large land-owners.

Communism is idiocy. They want to divide up the property. Suppose they did it -- it requires brains to keep money as well as make it. In a precious little while the money would be back in the former owner's hands and the communist would be poor again.

A basic contradiction between socialism and the market economy does not exist.