Friedrich Engels Quotes

I argue that one of the functions of a capitalist state is to defend capitalism from itself, to defend capitalism from the capitalists.

The revolution eats its own. Capitalism re-creates itself.

There is no mutuality of interests ... between capital and labor. It is the iron heel of a soulless monopoly, crushing the manhood out of sovereign citizens.

We cannot remove the evils of capitalism without taking its source of power: ownership.

Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume: the hellish cycle is complete.

Capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them.

Under capitalism we have a state in the proper sense of the word, that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by another.

Freedom" is a grand word, but under the banner of Free Trade the most predatory wars were conducted; under the banner of "free labor" the toilers were robbed.

War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. Man becomes a wolf for his fellow-man. It is a question of eating one’s brother or being eaten by him. War between workers and workers for the sharing of wages. War between capitalists and capitalists for the sharing of profits.

The profit-grinding system is maintained by competition, or veiled war, not only between the conflicting classes, but also within the classes themselves: there is always war among the workers for bare subsistence, and among their masters, the employers and middle-men, for the share of the profit wrung out of the workers; lastly, there is competition always, and sometimes open war, among the nations of the civilised world for their share of the world-market.

The capitalist process shapes things and souls for socialism.

I don't think capitalism can survive.

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.

Capitalism proceeds through creative destruction. What is created is capitalism in a 'new and improved' form - and what is destroyed is self-sustaining capacity, livelihood and dignity of its innumerable and multiplied 'host organisms' into which all of us are drawn/seduced one way or another.

Capitalism is, fundamentally, an economic system that promotes inequality.

Capitalism is war; socialism is peace.

I'm not a communist, of course. But I do think that everything is down to economics. Capitalism doesn't change.

There's nothing pure about capitalism.

When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.

The rise of capitalist practice and morality brought with it a radical revision of how the commons are treated, and also of how they are conceived.

A Socialist Government cannot carry on a capitalist system better than the capitalists. The men bred by a capitalist system are men of affairs who understand their business. They are not apprentices.

The strongest form of fight against the capitalist class is the strike. Strikes are necessary, ever again, against the capitalists’ tendency to increase their profits by lowering wages and increase the hours or the intensity of work.

With the coming of peace, the workers are no longer needed as soldiers; they are no longer comrades, defenders of the fatherland, heroes. Once more they become beasts of burden, objects of exploitation.

Governments' thirst for investment is compounded by the insatiable appetite of employers for new markets and a 'competitive' labor force, by which they mean cheap and endlessly exploitable.

Capitalism did not arise because capitalists stole the land and the workmen's tools, but because it was more efficient than feudalism. It will perish because it is not merely less efficient than socialism, but actually self-destructive.