Guy Standing Quotes

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed.

Who is looking out for the working class? The answer is, Nobody!

The precariat is the first class in history to be losing acquired rights - cultural, civil, social, economic, and political.

While unions did not play a part in my family life when I was being brought up, my early years were most certainly spent in a working-class community.

The middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table.

... wholly in the interest of the creditor classes, the banking fraternity, and the commercial world, without proper provision for the debtor classes and those who toil, produce and sustain the country.

Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification.

One of the basic tenets of the working class is you want to get out of the working class.

I think that's always something when you're working class, when you're aware of things that you haven't had; there are moments when you question yourself, definitely.

I never met a poor person who wanted to soak the rich; they want to get rich.

I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike. I know that because I don't come from a wealthy background.

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.

You destroy the initiative of the working people if they don't feel they have a fighting chance to be a part of the American Dream.

The controversies between the proletariat and the middle class had to be smoothed out and bridged over by each getting to know and understand the other.

There is a process of social and of political differentiation going on in the real working class all the time.

My sympathies have always been for working-class people.

Most of the time in America, we're surrounded by oppressive inequality such that the wealthiest 1 percent collectively own substantially more than the bottom 90 percent. One escape from that is America's wild places.

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

We cannot afford to leave the poor behind.

In one sense, Obama's point couldn't be clearer: race is a distraction from class-based inequities. And if we dismiss working-class resentment as camouflaged racism, we will continue to be distracted by the spectre of race.

If you've got unemployment, low pay, that was just too bad. But that was the system. That was the sort of economy and philosophy against which I was fighting in the 1930s.

Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.

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

I don't get up in the morning and think my mission is to end Britain. I do get up in the morning and think that my mission is to end poverty.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.