Karl Marx Quotes

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

As, in religion, man is governed by the products of his own brain, so in capitalistic production, he is governed by the products of his own hand.

The capitalist mode of production and accumulation, and therefore capitalist private property, have for their fundamental condition the annihilation of self-earned private property: in other words, the expropriation of the labourer.

In reality, the labourer belongs to capital before he has sold himself to capital.

The object of the law of value is to elucidate the actual exchange relations of commodities.

The general fact of surplus value, namely that the workmen does not get the full value of his labours, and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist, is obvious.

My claim is that we do not have a market economy, but a capitalist economy.

It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.

It is probable that for a long time to come the mass of mankind in civilized countries will find it both necessary and advantageous to labor for wages, and to accept the condition of hired laborers.

Ours is a capitalist society. It is therefore inevitable that, in part- and I repeat- in part- we must address this goal of deracialisation within the context of the property relations characteristics of a capitalist economy.

The wealth which the capitalist appears to give in exchange for the workman's labour was generated neither by the labour nor the riches of the capitalist, but it was originally obtained by the labour of the workman

LABOUR, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, on with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.

The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent.

Exploitation is not exclusively capitalist, but wealth creation is.

In capitalist society spare time is acquired for one class by converting the whole life-time of the masses into labour-time.

Marxian exploitation is the exploitation of people's lack of understanding of economics.

If we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist.

If the labourer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist.

The social relations of capitalism have penetrated slowly into all spheres of life to make wage labour the general condition of existence only in fairly recent times.

Capitalism denies the right to live. You have only the right to remain on the labour market.

As long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.

Capitalism cannot be reduced to one or a few features, but it does possess one relationship, central to its existence and operation, that constitutes the essence of inequality and ineradicable instability: the wage-labor-capital connection that dwells at the heart of the system.

The capitalist knows that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they may smell, are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews, and what is more, a wonderful means whereby out of money to make more money.

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.