B. C. Forbes Quotes

Many of the early nationalisation measures were right. They have remained part of the social fabric. I favour measures of that type.

Americans are sick of the idea of the government taking over everything and trying to run it. We don't know how to run a bank, a car company.

No less than 50 percent of the means of production must be in the hands of the state.

When Government has a monopoly of all production and all distribution, as many Governments have, it can not permit any economic activity that competes with it.

The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.

Most countries choose to have government run the economy.

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.

No company fails in communist China, because they're all partly owned by the government.

If you want government to take everything, if you want government to take more and more over with the banks, more of the industries, all of a sudden you're going to have a government auto czar, right there, right down the line, that's socialism.

I do not believe in government ownership of anything which can with propriety be left in private hands, and in particular I should most strenuously object to government ownership of railroads. In my judgment public ownership of railroads is highly undesirable and would probably in this country entail far-reaching disaster.

Big corporations are all to be nationalized.

That’s right Clement. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.

I would like to see the word 'nationalization' banned from the socialist vocabulary.

Under a Labour government, there's virtually nowhere you can put your savings where they would be safe from the state. ... If you put money in a sock they'd probably nationalize socks.

What is politically defined as economic planning is the forcible superseding of other people's plans by Government officials.

Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite backed up by the brute force of government.

Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individuals life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management.

First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice.

Socialism? We've had way too much of it already.

Nationalization, unmentionable only yesterday, has entered common usage not least because an even scarier word - depression - is next on America's list to avoid.

So far I go with the Socialists as to think it a pretty general rule that, where monopoly is necessary, it is better in public hands.

The statists want to control the economy.

We will do whatever the government tells us to do, which is a critically important principle of the Chinese market economy, and there is nothing more for discussion about it.

Don’t look down over here Clement. Whenever you see something large, private and working well, you want to nationalize it.

The party cannot relinquish its leading role in the economy.