Bell Hooks Quotes

America's middle class is getting hammered, and Washington is rigged to work for the big guy.

It is a sad commentary upon our form of government when every decision of the Supreme Court seems designed to fatten capital and starve and destroy labor.

We live in a world today where the capitalists' confidence in their ability to rule has been shaken.

It is very easy for many Americans to say, I hate racism, I hate homophobia, I hate sexism, but it is a little bit harder for people in the middle or upper middle class to say, maybe we do have to deal with the greed of Wall Street,

Poor white people and poor black people just don't know how much they have in common. Rich people don't give a damn about either group.

If class warfare isn’t the richest of the rich fighting tooth and nail against unions and any tax increases while record numbers of people lose their homes, what is?

It would be well for those interested to reflect whether there now exists, or ever has existed, a wealthy and civilized community in which one portion did not live on the labor of another.... Remember that labor is the only source of wealth, and how small a portion of it, in all old and civilized countries, even the best governed, is left to those by whose labor wealth is created.

Capitalism, even 150 years ago, was more inclusive; there was more of a sense of social responsibility…. Today the system doesn’t seem to be as fair or inclusive. It doesn’t seem to be helping broader society.

Human beings are not efficiently designed for a capitalist system of production.

Treason is a strong word but not too strong, rather too weak, to characterize the situation in which the Senate is the eager, resourceful. Indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be, and vastly more dangerous interests that manipulate the prosperity produced by all, so that it heaps up riches for a few. .

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

A bloated aristocracy rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth—the Chinese coolie—and imports him here to meet the free American in the labor market and further widen the breach between the rich and the poor, still further to degrade white labor.

You cannot be a party which on one hand says we're in favor of working people, we're in favor of the needs of young people but we don't quite have the courage to take on Wall Street and the billionaire class. People do not believe that. You've got to decide which side you're on.

After thirty years of a collapsing middle class,” he writes, “after thirty years of an economy designed to stack the deck in favor of the big guys; after thirty years of a political and constitutional system increasingly rigged to work for economic elites — after all this, the people revolted.

As industry's tycoons of the Thirties got their wings clipped, labor's leaders in the Eighties are getting their wings clipped. Not because of any class-related antagonism, but because any excess, ultimately, is its own undoing.

Some members of the ruling class are making a concerted effort to expand the wealth gap.

I'm really sick of the 'one percent' that is taking all the money from this country, draining the middle class, making it nonexistent.

The media bubble is the ultimate symbol of what's wrong with this country.

Republicans turned against organized workers and abandoned the idea of promoting equality at the bottom of the economic scale. They turned their idea of economic harmony into a justification for supporting industrialists, who were the nation's job creators.

If the American people make their voices heard and put enough pressure on Congress, we can restore fairness in our economic system, do what's right for the middle class, and show that Congress can stand up to special interests.

The ultimate credo of capitalism is to exploit people. It's not like this is just an incidental problem; it's inherent in the system.

Like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good.

The rules of the global economy are rigged against those who have to work to earn a living and in favour of multinational corporations and the ultra-rich.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world.

Growing inequality is exacerbated by the companies who simply treat workers as commodities, and our governments are cowered by their demands to perpetuate this model of greed.