Noam Chomsky Quotes

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.

In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.

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

The capitalist process shapes things and souls for socialism.

When capitalism changes, so must socialism.

Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.

Capitalism has its weaknesses. But it is capitalism that ended the stranglehold of the hereditary aristocracies, raised the standard of living for most of the world and enabled the emancipation of women.

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

Capitalism and the market are presented as synonymous, but they are not. Capitalism is both the enemy of the market and democracy.

There's nothing pure about capitalism.

Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist.

I used to think that capitalism was human nature. Now I know that it is culture.

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

Neither Capitalism nor Socialism can pretend to be an ideology. They are merely methods for dividing ownership and income.

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.

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.

Capitalism still wants to beat socialism in the end.

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine -- the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit.

Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable

Controlling capitalism has proved far more difficult than controlling anything else, because capitalism is based on the control of the many by the few—the reverse of the conventional definition of political democracy.

Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction.

We're always serving something, even if we're not aware of it. We're usually serving capitalism.

Capitalism might everywhere be spreading havoc, but it is also triumphant everywhere.

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

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.