Hugo Chavez Quotes

Socialism's not a word that I use. I say 'social democracy' because I don't think the government needs to own all the means of production.

I am convinced that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism, the path is socialism.

The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there's no dictatorship here.

We who are members of the Communist Party repudiate the exclusive identification of democracy with capitalism. We declare that democracy can be widened, take on new aspects, become truly a rule of the people, only when it is extended to the economic life of the people.

Our intention is not to replace socialism by some other system, but to reinforce it.

I think democratic socialism will ultimately prevail in this country because it makes an enormous amount of sense.

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.

I think that the future belongs to democracy, but not to capitalism, because they are opposite camps.

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.

Socialism is... not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems.

But we don't have an example of a democratic society existing in a socialist economy - which is the only real alternative to capitalism in the modern world.

Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines.

Socialist democracy is not, a luxury and its need is not limited to the most advanced industrial countries.

To pursue a so-called Third Way is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be explicit that we are not aiming for a more efficient version of a system that has failed.

Democracy is not compatible with capitalism but is congruent with a version of democratic socialism in which the wealth, resources, and benefits of a social order are shared in an equitable and just manner.

I am against the use of capitalist mechanisms to build socialism.

Socialism makes war upon a system not a class…. Labour should capture power, not destroy it.

I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread. The other system has been tried and found wanting

When capitalism changes, so must socialism.

Socialism, as I understand it, is a system of democracy. Without democracy, there is no socialism.

If you are in Brazil and you grew up in a right-wing dictatorship, you think Marxism is liberating. But if you grew up in Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union is controlling everything and killing people, then you think capitalism is liberating. Neither of those two things are true and it doesn't take a lot brains to understand this.

Socialism requires that government becomes your god.

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

But Socialism, alone, can bring self-determination of their peoples.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.