Hilaire Belloc Quotes

For [Karl] Marx what counts is man. He is the root of everything;while for capitalism, the aim are things, profit, and man is only a means to gain them. As an authentically religious individual, Marx could not be other than against "religion".

In the society of to-day the means of production are a monopoly of the capitalistic class; the dependence of the working classes which results from this is the cause of misery and of servitude in all its forms.

It is the basic principle of Marxism that any attempt to reconcile capital and labor so that they both co-operate in peace and prosperity is a betrayal of communism.

Capitalism cannot survive without a working class, while the working class can flourish a lot more freely without capitalism.

By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.

Communism can't survive the captivating allure of capitalism.

The Soviet Union used the exploitation of workers under capitalism as an agitational issue to subvert Western democracies even as it practiced slave labor at home.

He (Aneurin Bevan) enjoys prophesying the imminent fall of the capitalist system, and is prepared to play a part, any part, in its burial, except that of mute.

Historical capitalism is a materialist civilization.

Surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are... the invisible essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena

Political economy regards the proletarian like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle.

Capitalism is a development by refinement from feudalism, just as feudalism is development by refinement from slavery . Capitalism is but the gentlemen's method of slavery.

The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man's will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, eventually revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph.

Communists are frustrated capitalists.

If history could prove and teach us anything, it would be the private ownership of the means of production as a necessary requisite of civilization and material well-being. All civilizations have up to now been based on private property. Only nations committed to the principle of private property have risen above penury and produced science, art, and literature. There is no experience to show that any other social system could provide mankind with any of the achievements of civilization.

The difference between capitalism and feudalism is that under capitalism, they make money directly through wages, manufacturing, and commerce and under feudalism, it's directly through juro-political means.

Liberals, communists, socialists, look at people as workers. They look at 'em as ants, worker ants, worker bees and so forth, and they just plug 'em in to do jobs that need to be done.

I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.

Never was it [Capitalism] imposed on life as a system, or at all. It grew out of life, not all at once but gradually, and is therefore one of the great natural designs. When it was found and identified by such men as Adam Smith, who wrote its bible, and Karl Marx, who wrote its obituary too soon, it was already working.

I actually did trouble to read Marx first hand. I found it illuminating in so many ways; in particular, my perception of the relationship between people and the society in which they live was irreversibly altered.

In the assumption that power belongs as a matter of course to capital, all economists are Marxians.

The only solution to the contradictions of capitalism entails the abolition of wage labour.

Capitalism, communism ... it's all garbage.

Emancipation of human labor from economic servitude and exploitation, i.e., from organizations of production in which the conditions of work are determined by a master class who own the means of production, and in which the fruits of work are alienated from workers to the benefit of masters.

The corporation is the "master", the employee is the "servant". Because the corporation owns the means of production without which the employee could not make a living, the employee needs the corporation more than vice versa.