Howard Zinn Quotes

In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of 'the Haves' over the human rights of 'the Have Nots' is inevitably called into serious question.

If the upper classes, through their political representatives, pass legislation that diminishes the income of the middle class and reduces services to the poor and further enrich the affluent, this is not class warfare. But if the middle class and the poor, and their representatives, complain that this is unfair, that is class warfare. So say some of our politicians who oppose class warfare.

And a lot of Barack Obama's support people are angry, don't like this country, from Bill Ayers to Jeremiah Wright on down. They think this country was founded in an unjust and immoral way and it has been unjust and immoral since it was founded. And it's about time it changed, it's about time the little guy got his share because the little guy is only little because everything's been stolen from him by the big guys.

In America, the top 1 percent led the country into war and economic devastation, leaving the less fortunate to fight for one and pay for both.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

Remember, until the 1970s, the spread of democracy has always been accompanied by the decline of inequality. The more democratic our societies have been, the more equal they have been becoming. Now we have the reverse tendency. The spread of democracy now is very much accompanied by the increase in inequality.

There is a legitimate concern about wealth distribution in the United States, but the answer is not to scapegoat any individual who makes over $200,000 per year and to try to sell the fraud that the government can equitably take the money of those who have earned it and give it to those who haven't.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

George W. Bush has helped those who have most, hurt those who have least and ignored everyone in between.

We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.

One of the most disruptive forces in politics is the feeling that wealth is concentrated in the hands of an alien people.

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.

The rights of the minority must be protected and the rich are always fewer in number than the poor.

To ruin those who possess something is not to come to the aid of those who possess nothing; it is only to render misery general.

There are no great lords who possess everything and a herd of people who have nothing

God help the rich, the poor can look after themselves

If, in a country, the wealth is concentrated in the hands of only the few, it cannot witness harmony and stability.

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return

What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries?

There is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines.

Inequality is bad for everyone, not just the middle class and the poor.

To be concerned about inequality is not engaging in class warfare.

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Negro Merchants would gain control of all the lands in the Colony, leaving nothing for all the laboring poor white Men.