Henry Charles Carey Quotes

Nor can one class appropriate the produce of the labour of another class, as the capitalists now appropriate and enjoy the wealth which the powers of the working man daily call into existence. It is inequality of exchanges which enables one class to live in luxury and idleness, and dooms another to incessant toil

We have only dented the fortress and the wage slaves are still locked in their cells.

Capitalism in and of itself is based on the monetising of human labour, and the first evidence of that is slavery. And that has never changed. We are all participating in that.

The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What's happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It's going to make the situation worse.

Governments' thirst for investment is compounded by the insatiable appetite of employers for new markets and a 'competitive' labor force, by which they mean cheap and endlessly exploitable.

The hour of capitalism’s greatest triumph is its greatest danger.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term ...to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Freedom" is a grand word, but under the banner of Free Trade the most predatory wars were conducted; under the banner of "free labor" the toilers were robbed.

Capitalists … can grow rich only where there is an oppressed body of labourers

The labourer has neither raw materials nor tools. These are provided for him by the capitalist. For making this provision the capitalist of course expects a reward

War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. Man becomes a wolf for his fellow-man. It is a question of eating one’s brother or being eaten by him. War between workers and workers for the sharing of wages. War between capitalists and capitalists for the sharing of profits.

“I make you free,” so speak the Rights of Man to the laborer, “free to earn a wretched living and turn your employer into a millionaire; free to sell him your liberty for a mouthful of bread. He will imprison you ten hours or twelve hours in his workshops; he will not let you go till you are wearied to the marrow of your bones, till you have just enough strength left to gulp down pour soup and sink into a heavy sleep. You have but one of your rights that you may not sell, and that is the right to pay taxes.

The profit-grinding system is maintained by competition, or veiled war, not only between the conflicting classes, but also within the classes themselves: there is always war among the workers for bare subsistence, and among their masters, the employers and middle-men, for the share of the profit wrung out of the workers; lastly, there is competition always, and sometimes open war, among the nations of the civilised world for their share of the world-market.

In the society of to-day the means of production are a monopoly of the capitalistic class; the dependence of the working classes which results from this is the cause of misery and of servitude in all its forms.

... the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.

Under the guise of trade deals and trade agreements, its [free trade] really been used to keep workers in the world suppressed in terms of their wages or qualities of life.

I think that capitalism in general is responsible, not for the worldwide recession, but for a lot of suffering, both in the United States and around the world.

Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume: the hellish cycle is complete.

I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes.

Nigeria has had the misfortune - no, the fortune - of seeing the worst face of capitalism anywhere in Africa. The masses have seen it, they are disgusted, and they want an alternative.

You can very easily be turned into a commodity. I've grown up with it.

Capitalism has only hurt Latin America.

With the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave?

With the coming of peace, the workers are no longer needed as soldiers; they are no longer comrades, defenders of the fatherland, heroes. Once more they become beasts of burden, objects of exploitation.

Why does the great body of workingmen still permit itself to be ruled and exploited by the capitalists? Why are they not in a position to drive the minority of exploiters from power? Because they are an unorganized, undisciplined, individualistic and ignorant mass. The majority is impotent because it consists of a divided crowd of individuals each one of whom wishes to act according to his own impulse, regard his own interests.