Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes

We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind.

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

The most dreaded of all wars, the war of the poor against the rich … will come and come with all its horrors.

…the exorbitant wealth of individuals has a most baneful influence on public virtue, and therefore should be carefully guarded against. A wicked rich man soon corrupts a whole neighborhood, and a few of them will poison the morals of a whole community.

You can make too much of inequality because there is always so much of it.

There’s a lot of money to be made in unfairness.

A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.

Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.

Capitalism is the worst friend of humanity.

I see tremendous imbalance in the world. A very uneven playing field, which has gotten tilted very badly. I consider it unstable. At the same time, I don't exactly see what is going to reverse it.

We think of violence as being conflict and fighting and wars and so forth, but the most ongoing horrific measure of violence is in the horrible poverty of the Third World... and the poverty in the United States as well.

I should like to suggest to you that the cause of all the economic troubles is that we have an economic system which tries to maintain an equality of value between two things, which it would be better to recognise from the beginning as of unequal value.

Jamaica's a country of great dichotomy. On the one hand you have a tourist industry with great beaches and resorts, but on the other you have such great poverty and the violence that goes along with that.

It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf.

It is said that man doesn't live by bread alone. Sometimes this is unfortunate, because people who cannot live by bread alone too often kill other people in consequence of the fights they get into.

It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles.

Men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

In today’s America the working class is paid to fight wars that the powerful would never risk.

The biggest problem is that the rich people paying the bills do not share the same goals as the poor people they are trying to help. The wealthy have weak incentives to get the right amount of the right thing to those who need it; the poor are in no position to complain if they don’t.

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.

The bastards broke the People's back with their usury.... Let them die; the People will survive.

One must denounce the economic, financial, and social mechanisms and structures that are manipulated by the rich and powerful for their own benefit at the expense of the poor