Michael Parenti Quotes
Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens. The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all.
Parenti, Michael. Democracy for the Few. 9th ed., Wadsworth Publishing, 2010.
He was a strong opponent of communism (see {586209} and {586210}) but was also skeptical of unbridled capitalism.
At the time the Puerto Rican right wing distrusted the United States as too accommodating to labor, and the leftists saw American progressivism as a way of building an alliance between Puerto Rican and American labor movements.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
The United States money was then on the Gold Standard. The country was growing and needed more money in circulation. But most of the gold that might be available was in England and English bankers could control much of the U. S. economy. The Populists and the Democrats wanted us to use silver to back U. S. money as there was plenty of silver in the United States. The Republicans would not relent and depression was upon the country. A half century later, it would be Republican President Richard M. Nixon, who took the United States off the gold standard. Lease was far ahead of her time.
The term “rugged individualism” was used at the time be very conservatives and the very wealthy to describe business leladers with words that had very good public connotations. They argued that it would be undesirable to curtail their individualism that was so important by any government regulations or laws that would limit what the business leaders could do. However, the reality was that these very successful and powerful “rugged individualists” had regimented most everyone else—employees, consumers, and small businessmen who might sell them services or products. To Tugwell, if the wealthy and powerful few had no restrictions on their individualism, there would be precious little individualism for most of society. He sought a balance of regulating the individualism and prerogatives of the few somewhat in order to allow the vast majority of people to be able to have individuality as well.
Michael John Parenti is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at American and international universities and has been a guest lecturer before campus and community audiences.
