Eric Hobsbawm Quotes

Free enterprise and the market economy mean war; socialism and planned economy mean peace. We must plan civilization or we must perish.

Capitalism works. In the end, socialism imploded on itself. Communism imploded on itself. Ultimately jihadism will implode on itself, if we stay in the fight and stay on offense because failed philosophies don't work, there's no future.

The left hates capitalism, not because of freedom and liberty - although they do. But the primary they hate capitalism is that it is the most efficient engine to create wealth for the greatest number of people in a society that has ever been devised. Nobody's ever claimed it's perfect. Nobody's ever said it's flawless. But it's better than anything else out there, particularly anything left has to offer.

Capitalism, communism ... it's all garbage.

Bear in mind that capitalism is a tiny period of human society. You never really had capitalism, you always had one or another variant of state capitalism.

There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way.

While I have questions about the language used in describing the two economic systems, I think people have fairly good gut sense of the difference between socialism and capitalism.

If the central contest of the twentieth century has pitted capitalism against socialism, then F. A. Hayek has been its central figure. He helped us to understand why capitalism won by a knockout. It was Hayek who elaborated the basic argument demonstrating that central planning was nothing else but an impoverishing fantasy.

A fundamental contradiction does not exist between socialism and a market economy.

I know that some people in the U.S. associate the nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.

Socialists tend to want to pay people more money to do less work, and capitalists tend to want to provide better products at better prices.

Since the end of the 1970s, free-market capitalism has been in, and socialism has been out.

In government-directed economies, the collective takes priority over the individual. The moral ideal is equal results. That approach could not be further removed from the real world.

There is a buffet of ideologies for me to choose from. I've been a fan of certain communist and socialist ideals. Some have failed, some have succeeded. I've lived long enough to understand where all they failed.

While some people have rejected capitalism gladly and swiftly, I've done so slowly and reluctantly. Part of the reason was that I could see no clear alternative: unlike some anti-capitalists, I have never been an enthusiast for state communism.

In China the struggle to consolidate the socialist system, the struggle to decide whether socialism or capitalism will prevail, will still take a long historical period. However, we should all realize that the new system of socialism will unquestionably be consolidated. We can assuredly build a socialist state with modern industry, modern agriculture, and modern science and culture.

I'm not a big government guy. I believe in private industries taking care of people. I think they do a better job.

Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.

The system that would stand midway between capitalism and socialism.

Under communism (socialism), there is no incentive to supply people with anything they need or want, including safety.

I don't believe government should take over, you know, the grocery store down the street or own the means of production.

If we take the pope at his word and socialism is highly preferable to capitalism and he was really concerned about these people, he would demand they go home. He would demand they return to their homelands wherever they are, if they were socialist.

We who live in free market societies believe that growth and prosperity, and ultimately human fulfillment are created from the bottom up, not the government down.

Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future -- if mankind is to have a future

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.