Rudolf Hilferding Quotes

Modern views show that capitalistic income is not an exploitation, but that in the profits, taken as a whole, a part of the value that has been created is really due to the land or the capital.

Everything in the world is purchased by labor.

There are some who incline to favor a “minimum wage,” but who “kick at” a “maximum price.” Such surely forget that the capitalist could here just as easily as in the case of a rise in wages compelled by a workmen’s combination, or by any other cause, take his old profits out at the other end by raising the price of the manufactured article.

Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labourwhich its possessor will take in exchange for it.

Because the earth is not a product of labour it cannot have a value.

Just as Jimmy Stewart and Tyrone Power get 50 percent of the profits, so do I.

We propose in the following Treatise to give an outline of the Science which treats of the Nature, the Production, and the Distribution of Wealth. To that Science we give the name of Political Economy.

The facility of obtaining food is beneficial in two ways to the owners of capital, it at the same time raises profits and increases the amount of consumable commodities.

If you have company-owned stores, you make 100 percent of the profit from each one, but you have less entrepreneurial spirit.

My research in this period centered around growth, technical change, and income distribution, both how growth affected the distribution of income and how the distribution of income affected growth.

My wife and I decided to try and kick start our kitchens to a $15 minimum wage for cooks. I've probably had to go through and raise every menu price now by 50 cents because it took away my profit. I just underestimated what it was going to cost.

I would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and labor, so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little June with the December of his life.

It is but right that the men of brains and brawn who produce shall be recognized in the distribution. We simply ask a just proportion of the proceeds.

Capital is a result of labor.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

The quantity of industry therefore not only increases in every country with the increase of the stock or capital which sets it in motion; but, in consequence of this increase, the division of labour becomes extended, new and more powerful implements and machines are invented, and the same quantity of labour is thus made to produce an infinitely greater quantity of commodities.

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

Buy cheap and sell dear.

Median compensation in America has been stagnant over 25 of the last 30 years, the only exceptions being the last 5 years of the 1990s.

As capital is thus the most essential element in setting industry in motion, so it is by the amount of it, that the productiveness of that industry is chiefly determined.

The strong point of England is her cheap goods.

There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.

Labour is the father and active principle of wealth, as lands are the mother.

An industrialist's answer [to inflation] is to charge more for his product to the public, never to cut his own profits. Labor's answer is even more natural. Since the worker would have to change his entire mode of life, labor asks for higher wages to cover the higher expenses.

There is no resting place for an enterprise in a competitive economy.