Eugene V. Debs Quotes

Are we prepared to take on the enormous political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?

The ruling class is the rich. . . . And those people are so able to manipulate our democracy that they really control the democracy.

The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich.

Our society will always remain an unstable and explosive compound as long as political power is vested in the masses and economic power in the classes. In the end one of these powers will rule. Either the plutocracy will buy up the democracy, or the democracy will vote away the plutocracy.

…empire follows the balance of property, whether lodged in one, a few, or many hands.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

The landed men are the true owners of our political vessel, the moneyed men are no more than passengers in it.

Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.

Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.

The middle has not enough class that I think about the middle class.

Roughly speaking, I think it's accurate to say that a corporate elite of managers and owners governs the economy and the political system as well, at least in very large measure.

As Brooks Adams put it, the sole problem of our ruling class is whether to coerce or to bribe the powerless majority.

A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

The real alternative to power of the rich is not power of the poor. It's just plain power.

It's a rule worth having in mind. Income almost always flows along the same axis as power but in the opposite direction.

The capitalist class rules but does not govern: it contents itself with ruling the government.

America is about class. To pretend that it isn't is very ignorant. No society has ever existed without some kind of a ruling class.

One needs either equality or political and economic superiority.

These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.

The most powerful forces in economics are not numbers or facts. They are prejudices and preferences. No amount of evidence will ever change the degree to which many of the rich and powerful prefer themselves to be richer and more powerful and others poorer and weaker.

There isn't much discussion of ruling class in America even in Boston, probably one of the most class-conscious cities in the country?

I didn't go into 'Rabbit Hole' wanting to write about class. I think because of who I am it somehow found its way into it.

There's a small amount of super-wealthy people that want to maintain their billions and billions of dollars. Those are the people who are really making the decisions.