Marquis de Sade Quotes

Socialists will often talk as if some form of superbly equalized destitution were preferable to "maldistributed" plenty. A national income that is rapidly growing in absolute terms for practically everyone will be deplored because it is making the rich richer.

…no one should own more than a certain amount of land or receive more than a certain amount of income…

Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.

If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality.

No matter how worthy the cause, it is robbery, theft, and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong.

The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 - to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And that message is clear and concise: Go to Hell.

What pushes the masses into the camp of socialism is, even more than the illusion that socialism will make them richer, the expectation that it will curb all those who are better than they themselves are.

Government income redistribution programs produce the same result as theft. In fact, that's what a thief does; he redistributes income. The difference between government and thievery is mostly a matter of legality.

Give your goods to the poor: Christ. Property is theft - as long as it's not mine: Marx .

This is not to say that the government should confiscate from the "haves" and bestow upon the "have-nots", beyond the requirements of a compassionate welfare program to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. Far from it. But it is to say that our duty is to foster a strong, vibrant wealth-producing economy which operates in such a way that new additions to wealth accrue to those who presently have little or no ownership stake in their country.

Creating wealth is not an end in itself. It needs to be shared by all.

I don't subscribe to the view that people who are better off don't want to live in a more equal society.

I try to deal with the poverty gap - to do policies for all of us rather than only for the wealthy.

Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?

I think that we must face the fact that in reality, you cannot have economic and political equality without having some form of social equality. I think this is inevitable.

Communism was a great system for making people equally poor - in fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich.

I actually believe in redistribution (of wealth)

But rich or poor, black or white, none of us are entitled to anything.

There are social democrats and others who are marching more in the direction of equality, whether you call them socialists or communists... Capitalism has only hurt Latin America.

I'm still committed to the socialist idea because the socialist idea, correctly understood, includes the principles of freedom and social justice. It also includes the recognition of the value of democracy. When we speak about social justice, it means that freedom should be used not only in the interest of profit but also in the interest of the advancement of the people who create all values.

Equality begins with economic empowerment.

I think this is a moment of a lot of possibilities, and openings. Occupy and the 99% movement are really going to break through, and we are going to create a new economy, an economy that we need that works for everyone. Where everyone works, everyone counts and everyone contributes.

The government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of the wealthy.