Joseph Stiglitz Quotes

Earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.

Of all the fictions we heard last week in Tampa, the one I find most troubling is this: If we all just go our own way, our nation will be stronger for it. Because if we sever the threads that connect us, the only people who will go far are those who are already ahead.

We live in a society where we never prepare people to be a community.

Everybody is supposed to be a part of their own community.

In Washington, the translation of E Pluribus Unum has been lost. The belief that we are one nation - united in purpose - caring about and for one another is no longer the practice.

What Republicans have done in my view is that they are systematically dismantling a sense of community in America.

I get the, you know, 'In my generation, we all had victory gardens, we all participated in this country's success.' It's that kind of sentiment that I hear from everybody, that we're all in this together.

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.

Government can contribute to a shared sense of purpose on the part of the citizenry; that's its highest and best application.

In community people remain essentially united in spite of all separating factors, while in society they are essentially separated in spite of all uniting factors.

We can't talk about community values without being prepared to invest in those very same communities.

In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.

A thing that really troubles me about a more polarized society is that you stop having a sense of society and citizenship.

Elections should highlight principled disagreements, but they must not obscure our capacity to cooperate for the common good.

We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people and groups is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided.

There are big problems that change the world. If we are working together, that will make us understand each other, appreciate each other, help each other.

I don't see any reason why society can't function well when people come together in the common interest under our system. In fact that's what the Big Society is all about!

Having more than one legal system running is not a sign of a healthy or inclusive society. It is just one less thing that people have in common.

My vision for a better Rhode Island starts with a simple idea - we are all in this together.

I fear that our loss of a sense of connection with, and duties to, each other leaves us unable to effectively address growing inequality and the bitter antagonism between different communities in American society. We've been at our best when we've felt in significant degree that our fates bound up with each other, where we've had a very inclusive sense of the other, and that's now very much not the case.

Social solidarities are torn apart, furthering the retreat into orbits of the private that undermine those spaces that nurture non-commodified knowledge, values, critical exchange and civic literacy.

We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is - on the brink of catastrophe - torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!

We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

'Collective' sounds like communism, but we do work and live in a society where there is a collective well-being.

I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn't defeat the British, it didn't get us to the moon, build our nation's highways, or map the human genome. We did that together. This is the high call of patriotism.