John Caudwell Quotes

Capitalism and democracy are the opposite of each other. Capitalism is a system that guarantees that a few are going to do very well, and everybody else is going to serve the few. Democracy means everybody has a seat at the table. Everybody.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

We don't have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.

I don't think equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning in and of itself. I'm not against inequality... if Bill Gates gets another hundred million dollars, it's no skin off my nose.

Class still matters in Britain today.

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

Colour is not the issue in America; class is.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

They cannot divide us by saying that you're middle class or you're lower class.

Inherited wealth, that is not what America is based upon.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

If everybody lives in the same way, there's something almost narcotizing about it, but the true misery of economic class difference is knowing that you can't have what somebody else does.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.

Everything in America is so stratified by class now. We have the 93rd level of income inequality in the world. You're already seeing highway lanes that are for pay and ones that aren't.

It has often been said, that there is but one rank of men in America… we have no artificial distinctions of men into noblemen and commoners among us, but it ought to be remarked, that superior degrees of industry and capacity, and above all, commerce, have introduced inequality of property among us, and these have introduced natural distinctions of rank in Pennsylvania, as certain and general as the artificial distinctions of men in Europe. This will ever be the case while commerce exists in this country.

Our democracy may have an aristocracy of talent, as Jefferson said – which is fine – but we don’t want everyone else to be left out. Something like that seems to be happening, though.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents;... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.

The competition of the poor takes away from the reward of the rich.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

Of the 1 Percent. By the 1 Percent. For the 1 Percent.

We deny your internationalism, because it is a luxury which only upper classes can afford; the working people are hopelessly bound to their native shores.

I do think that there is both a very powerful sense of entitlement and a kind of bubble of wealth which makes it hard for the people at the very top to understand the travails of the middle class.

The fight is over two fundamentally different ideas about the nature of America. On one side are those who believe that that every hardworking person should be able to rise. On the other are those who believe that wealthy white men should always rule over a permanent class of workers.

One thing that is clearly not maximized by free markets is equality. I am talking not about that pale substitute for equality known as equality of opportunity but about equality itself.