Noam Chomsky Quotes

I see socialism in the direction, of management, of enterprise, by all who work in the enterprise.

We approach closer and closer to socialism.

We want industry to be in the public sector, to change the power structure of our society...We have not yet carved out of public enterprise a wide enough area of management decision which ought properly to be brought within the ambit of the workers themselves.

Socialism must come down from the brain and reach the heart.

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 am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.

Only with the tools of production in their own hands could the workers ever hope to control their own lives and receive the fruits of their labor.

I have always been fully persuaded that, through co-operation, labor could become its own employer.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Socialism values equality more than liberty.

I am, of course, aware that the ultimate solution is the ownership and control of the means of life by the whole of the people; but we are not at that stage of development as yet.

There is, therefore, no solution possible other than an economy directed by the workers through their organisations of control-through the workers' syndicates.

Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social, political and ideological system which breaks the fetters upon economic growth created under capitalism and opens the way to a new period of economic and social expansion on a much larger scale.

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

Socialist forms of life could find a much easier realization than through the seizure of all industrial property by the State, and the State organization of agriculture and industry.

The ideas of socialism are not modern ideas.

Workers thought that the moment was ripe to take possession once [and] for all the means of production. They armed for self-defense... and began to organize production on their own.... It was the right of property abolished in fact... it was a new regime, a new form of social life that was being ushered in. And the government stood by because it felt impotent to offer opposition.

I define socialism as the government controlling the means of production. I don't think the answer to some of the big vesting problems we have in this country are to solve them entirely with a government-only solution.

A cooperative enterprise is the key alternative to a traditional capitalist enterprise. All the workers, whatever they do inside an enterprise, have to be able to participate in collectively arriving at the decisions about what, how, where to produce, and what to do with the profits in a democratic way. One person, one vote should decide how these things are done.

I can't help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the Western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.

The wealth of society is created by the workers, peasants and working intellectuals. If they take their destiny into their own hands, follow a Marxist-Leninist line and take an active attitude in solving problems instead of evading them, there will be no difficulty in the world which they cannot overcome.

I understand by socialism a society in which the aim of production is not profit, but the use. In which the individual citizen participates responsibly in his work, and in the whole social organization, and in which he is not a means who is employed by capital.

All world-improvers are Socialists. And consequently there are no Classical world-improvers.

The bottom feeders of the entertainment industry were never invited to presidential inaugurations. The bottom feeders of the entertainment were never used as fundraisers for presidents of the United States. They were ignored. There was always a line. They were always there, and they were always who they were, and they always did what they did. The bottom feeders have now become the standard. That's what's different.

It may never come, but I fancy than no man who has sympathy for the human race does not wish that sometime those who labor should have the whole product of their toil. Probably it will never come, but I wish that the time might come when men who work in the industries would own the industries.