Wei Jingsheng Quotes

My goal for the Arab world is to change the status quo, which is horrible politically, religiously, economically, in every way.

[We must] accelerate the reform of our political system, especially the building of a system of socialist democracy based on law …. Democracy is a worldwide trend …. If the Party doesn’t hold up the banner of democracy in our country, someone else will, and we will lose out.

Democratization was not a slogan, but the essence of Perestroika.

Everything changes.... Social life changes, and with it the "national question" changes, too. At different periods different classes enter the arena, and each class has its own view of the "national question." Consequently, in different periods the "national question" serves different interests and assumes different shades, according to which class raises it, and when.

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.

For a free country to continue thriving, there have to be regular reforms, because any society, any economy that stays in place, you're going to see repeated attempts to exploit the openings for twisting policy to the advantage of those who already have wealth and power.

Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalization. I do not believe that if you are libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed.

India has political freedom but it does not have economic freedom.

We cannot put into the Constitution, owing to existing prejudices and existing institutions, an entire exclusion of all class distinctions.

Almost all that has been done for the good of the people has been done since the right lost the monopoly of power, since the rights of property were discovered to be not unlimited.

All power is fast getting into the hands of the very lowest people.

The economic and technical capabilities of the established societies are sufficiently vast to allow for adjustments and concessions to the underdog.

Although the market and opportunities for consumption seem to offer a counterbalance to the government's authoritarian powers, many Chinese are ambivalent about the forces of Westernization and marketization and the rapidly growing gap between rich and poor

Social stability is ensured, not by the cessation of the demand for change – for the needy and the restless will never cease to cry for it – but by the fact that change in its progress must at last hurt some class of men who are strong enough to arrest it.

Signs everywhere now show a great moral awakening—the cleaning out of rotten business & still more rotten policies. But we’ve only begun! For the first time, men were questioning the fundamentals of democracy, inquiring whether we truly had self-government in America, or whether it had been corrupted by selfish interests. This questioning came not alone from what one might call the working class, but from middle America as well.

Many of the most privilege-conscious see capitalism as an evil economic regime and think of freedom only as a propaganda term thrown about by neoconservatives. To them, capitalism is the bogeyman hiding behind all of our societal ills, and freedom is an ideal used purely to justify global abuse. If someone lives in a country graced by low levels of poverty, legitimate democratic elections, and a press that publicizes the plight of the governed, yet they wish to abolish markets and live in something more akin to a Communist state, they should check their privilege.

Twenty years ago, I was part of a movement of millions of people who were going after freedom. But today, they look and they say, 'What are the advantages of freedom?' So far, it's the vote and maybe, in certain places, lack of police harassment. You can live anywhere you want and do anything you want - if you have the means.

So, I think China desperately needs to legitimize some form of opposition.

I wanted to look at the upper-middle-class scene since the war, and in particular my generation's part in it. We had spent our early years as privileged members of a privileged class. How were we faring in the Age of the Common Man? How ought we to be faring?

China and India are feeding their people for the first time in human history due to free markets, and the Left knows that, and it gets them nervous.

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.

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.

In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.

I am a socialist, so I am not worried about socialism. I am worried about dictators who are putting everyone into a socialist state for their own benefit.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.