Tony Benn Quotes

We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries.

I would say I was still a Marxist - which is not to be confused with being a Communist. Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.

Marxist ideology is wrong, but I have known many good people who are Marxists.

We can learn something from Marxist thinking, but we cannot follow Marxist methods.

Marxism is the opium of the Marxists.

In the 1970s, many intellectuals had become political radicals. Marxism was correct, liberalism was for wimps, and Marx had pronounced that 'the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.'

Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations.

Marxists have some way of analyzing the development of affairs which enables them to judge far in advance of scientific thinkers what the trend of social and economic development is to be.

Of course, Marxism is an example of what Carl Popper would have called a 'World Three' structure, in that it's got immense power as an idea, but you couldn't actually hold up anything in the world and say: 'this is Marxism'.

If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

The important part of Marxism was its demand for active, constant, practical, class-war.

Marxism is always open, always critical, always self-critical.

Marxism is an interpretation of history which explains the progress of society as a product of the expansion of the forces of production of the material means of life, that is, the development of economy.

Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

Our judgment and moral categories, our idea of the future, our opinions about the present or about justice, peace, or war, everything, without excluding our rejections of Marxism, is impregnated with Marxism.

Marxism has not only failed to promote human freedom. It has failed to produce food.

Marx never saw an electric light bulb.

A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation — which revealed the class bias of the paper — and especially of course what the paper did not say.

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion — how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.

As for Marx, his economic value, apart from occasional … flashes of insight, is nil.

Marxism-Leninism is a worn-out dress that should be thrown away.

Stealing from capitalism is not like stealing out of our own pockets. Marx and Lenin have taught us that anything is ethical, so long as it is in the interest of the proletarian class and its world revolution.

Marxism comprises many principles, but in the final analysis they can all be brought back to a single sentence: it is right to rebel.