# Quotes about capitalism - Quotes: 65 - Authors: 35 - Broader topic: [Quotes about politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.json ## Quotes > In its literal meaning, capitalism means rule by capital, more specifically rule by the owners of capital for their exclusive private benefit. [David C. Korten](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-c-korten.md) · [When Corporations Rule the World](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-c-korten/when-corporations-rule-the-world.md) · p. 20 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-c-korten/when-corporations-rule-the-world/in-its-literal.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > In principle, we have a variety of important rights under the law. But we also know just how much these mean, in practice, to people who are unable to purchase them. We have the right of free expression, though some can shout louder than others, by reason of power, wealth, and privilege. We can defend our legal rights through the courts — insofar as we understand these rights and can afford the costs. All of this is obvious and hardly worth extended comment. In a perfectly functioning capitalist democracy, with no illegitimate abuse of power, freedom will be in effect a commodity; effectively, a person will have as much of it as he can buy. [Noam Chomsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky.md) · [The Chomsky Reader](https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky/the-chomsky-reader.md) · p. 189 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky/the-chomsky-reader/in-principle-we-have.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > I have on occasion remarked that I felt confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday. [Saul Alinsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky.md) · [Rules for Radicals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals.md) · p. 150 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals/i-have-on-occasion.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Those who claim a natural link between capitalism and democracy are cheating with the facts in the same way the Catholic Church cheats when it presents itself as the "natural"advocate of democracy and human rights against the threat of totalitarianism - as if it were not the case that the Church accepted democracy only at the end of the nineteenth century, and even then with clenched teeth, as a desperate compromise, making it clear that it preferred monarchy, and that it was making a reluctant concession to new times. [Slavoj Žižek](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek.md) · [First as Tragedy, Then as Farce](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce/those-who-claim.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > As Bertolt Brecht puts in his Threepenny Opera: ''What is the robbery of a bank compared to the foundation of a new bank?' [Slavoj Žižek](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek.md) · [The Sublime Object of Ideology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/as-bertolt-brecht.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [crime](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crime-2.md) > The signal failure of the academic Marxists is in their obliviousness to the transformation of modern labor. In the age of mass media, power has shifted its meaning and loci. Capitalism, whatever its problems, remains the most efficient economic mechanism yet to bring the highest quality of life to the greatest number. Because I have studied the past, I know that, in America and under capitalism, I am the freest woman in history. Union blue-collar jobs now routinely pay higher salaries than are earned by most teachers. Physical labor, as a concrete skill occupation, is free of the soul-destroying office politics suffers by the Marxists' demonized managerial class, who take their jobs home with them and are in a continual funk of anxiety and neurosis. … Unharried weekend leisure time is the center of working-class American life in ways the academic Marxists, resentfully marking papers and endlessly pressed for time, simply don't see. [Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sex, Art, and American Culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture.md) · p. 247 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture/the-signal-failure.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The capitalist distribution network, a complex chain of factory, transport, warehouse and retail outlet, is one of the greatest male accomplishments in the history of culture. [Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sexual Personae](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae.md) · p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/the-capitalist-distribution.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > One of feminism’s irritating reflexes is its fashionable disdain for “patriarchal society,” to which nothing good is ever attributed. But it is patriarchal society that has freed me as a woman. It is capitalism that has given me the leisure to sit at this desk writing this book. Let us stop being small-minded about men and freely acknowledge what treasures their obsessiveness has poured into culture. [Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sexual Personae](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae.md) · p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/one-of-feminisms.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [feminism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/feminism.md) > Capitalism, gaudy and greedy, has been inherent in western aesthetics from ancient Egypt on. It is the mysticism and glamour of things, which take on a personality of their own. As an economic system, it is in the Darwinian line of Sade, not Rousseau. [Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sexual Personae](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae.md) · p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/capitalism-gaudy-and.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Capitalism is an art form. [Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sexual Personae](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae.md) · p. 38 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/capitalism-is-an-art.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > this new class seeks to reduce the American working class to the levels of this global serfdom. After all, anything that drains corporate coffers is a loss of freedom--the God-given American freedom to exploit other human beings to make money. The marriage of this gospel of prosperity with raw, global capitalism, and the flaunting of the wealth and privilege it brings, are supposedly blessed and championed by Jesus Christ. Compassion is regulated to private, individual acts of charity or left to the churches. The callousness of the ideology, the notion that it in any way reflects the message of the gospels, which were preoccupied with the poor and the outcasts, illustrates how the new class has twisted Christian scripture to serve America's god of capitalism and discredited the Enlightenment values we once prized. (p133) [Chris Hedges](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges.md) · [American Fascists](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/american-fascists.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/american-fascists/this-new-class.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Hope will come with the return of the language of class conflict and rebellion, language that has been purged from the lexicon of the liberal class. This does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of working class enslavement, but we have to learn again to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power. [Chris Hedges](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges.md) · [Death of the Liberal Class](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class.md) · p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class/hope-will-come.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > It is one of the great ironies of corporate control that the corporate state needs the abilities of intellectuals to maintain power, yet outside of this role it refuses to permit intellectuals to think or function independently. [Chris Hedges](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges.md) · [Death of the Liberal Class](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class/it-is-one.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md) > It is an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts. [Rachel L Carson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/rachel-l-carson.md) · [Silent Spring](https://www.leafyquotes.com/rachel-l-carson/silent-spring.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/rachel-l-carson/silent-spring/it-is-an-era.md) Topics: [ecology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. [Chris Hedges](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges.md) · [Death of the Liberal Class](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class/unfettered-capitalism-is-a-revolutionary.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Charlie really has this, like, obsessive death wish! Yes! he, he wants to be caught, processed, put in a can, not just any can, you dig, it has to be StarKist! suicidal brand loyalty, man, deep parable of consumer capitalism, they won't be happy with anything less than drift-netting us all, chopping us up and stacking us on the shelves of Supermarket Amerika, and subconsciously the horrible thing is, is we want them to do it... [Thomas Pynchon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon.md) · [Inherent Vice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/inherent-vice.md) · p. 119 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/inherent-vice/charlie-really-has.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [consumerism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consumerism.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > People are being pushed around, disrespected, defrauded, injured, and given the runaround by arrogant corporate bureaucrats using nameless, robotic, and tyrannical "fine print" contract barricades. [Ralph Nader](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-nader.md) · [To the Ramparts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-nader/to-the-ramparts.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-nader/to-the-ramparts/people-are-being.md) Topics: [bureaucracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/bureaucracy.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value counts. On it centers the rationality of the status quo, and all alien rationality is bent to It. [Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/the-music-of-the.md) Topics: [music](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/music.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the façade of objective rationality. [Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 32 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/the-tangible-source.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > In the strictly Marxist sense, there is not even in Soviet Russia a state socialism but a state capitalism. According to Marx, the social condition "capitalism" does not consist in the existence of individual capitalists, but in the existence of the specific "capitalist mode of production", that is, in the production of exchange values instead of use values, in wage work of the masses and in the production of surplus value, which is appropriated by the state or the private owners, and not by the society of working people. In this strictly Marxist sense, the capitalistic system continues to exist in Russia. And it will continue to exist as long as the masses of people continue to lack responsibility and to crave authority. [Wilhelm Reich](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilhelm-reich.md) · [The Mass Psychology of Fascism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilhelm-reich/the-mass-psychology-of-fascism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilhelm-reich/the-mass-psychology-of-fascism/in-the-strictly.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [communism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/communism.md), [Russia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/russia.md) > Failure is a big part of a free market's success. People fail to live up to their potential, or to carry out all their good intentions, in all kinds of economic and political systems. Capitalism makes them pay a price for their failures, while socialism, feudalism, fascism and other systems enable personal failures, especially by those at the top, to be ignored and the inevitable price to be paid by others in lower standards of living than they could have had with the existing resources and technology. p. 24 [Thomas Sowell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell.md) · [Applied Economics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell/applied-economics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell/applied-economics/failure-is-a-big.md) Topics: [success and failure](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/success-and-failure.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hershey bars. [Thomas Pynchon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon.md) · [Gravity's Rainbow](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-pynchon/gravitys-rainbow/dont-forget-the.md) Topics: [war](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > For the first time since 1917, then, we live in a world in which property rights and free markets are viewed as fundamental principles, not grudging expedients; where the unpleasant aspects of a market system—inequality, unemployment, injustice—are accepted as facts of life. As in the Victorian era, capitalism is secure not only because of its successes—which, as we will see in a moment, have been very real—but because nobody has a plausible alternative. > > This situation will not last forever. Surely there will be other ideologies, other dreams; and they will emerge sooner rather than later if the current economic crisis persists and deepens. But for now capitalism rules the world unchallenged. [Paul R. Krugman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman.md) · [The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/the-return-of-depression-economics-and-the-crisis-of-2008.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-r-krugman/the-return-of-depression-economics-and-the-crisis-of-2008/for-the-first.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > In the political domain, deprived of any collective politcal landmark, stripped of any notion of the 'meaning of History’; and no longer able to hope for or expect a social revolution, many intellectuals, along with much of public opinion, have been won over to the logic of a capitalist economy and a parliamentary democracy. [Alain Badiou](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alain-badiou.md) · [Ethics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alain-badiou/ethics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alain-badiou/ethics/in-the-political.md) Topics: [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > In virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dog, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master. [Peter Kropotkin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-kropotkin.md) · [The Conquest of Bread](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-kropotkin/the-conquest-of-bread.md) · p. 59 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-kropotkin/the-conquest-of-bread/in-virtue-of-this.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > After World War II, we hoped the world might be united for the sake of peacemaking. Now the world is being "globalized" for the sake of trade and the so-called free market — for the sake, that is, of plundering the world for cheap labor, cheap energy, and cheap materials. How nations, let alone regions and communities, are to shape and protect themselves within this "global economy" is far from clear. [Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [Citizenship Papers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/citizenship-papers.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/citizenship-papers/after-world-war.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Let us have the candor to acknowledge that what we call “the economy” or “the free market” is less and less distinguishable from warfare. For about half of the last century, we worried about world conquest by international communism. Now with less worry (so far) we are witnessing world conquest by international capitalism. Though its political means are milder (so far) than those of communism, this newly internationalized capitalism may prove even more destructive of human cultures and communities, of freedom, and of nature. Its tendency is just as much toward total dominance and control. [Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [Citizenship Papers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/citizenship-papers.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/citizenship-papers/let-us-have.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > By this time, the era of cut-and-run economics ought to be finished. Such an economy cannot be rationally defended or even apologized for. The proofs of its immense folly, heartlessness, and destructiveness are everywhere. Its failure as a way of dealing with the natural world and human society can no longer be sanely denied. That this economic system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people’s choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is often the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject. [Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [Another Turn of the Crank](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/another-turn-of-the-crank.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/another-turn-of-the-crank/by-this-time.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it. [John Steinbeck](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck.md) · [The Grapes of Wrath](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-grapes-of-wrath.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-grapes-of-wrath/the-bank-is-something.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank — or the Company — needs — wants — insists — must have — as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. [John Steinbeck](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck.md) · [The Grapes of Wrath](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-grapes-of-wrath.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-grapes-of-wrath/if-a-bank.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. > > Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. [John Maynard Keynes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes.md) · [The Economic Consequences of the Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes/the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace.md) · p. 235 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes/the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace/lenin-is-said.md) Topics: [money](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably. [John Maynard Keynes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes.md) · [The Economic Consequences of the Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes/the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace.md) · p. 19 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes/the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace/the-immense-accumulations.md) Topics: [equality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/equality.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > I seek only to point out that the principle of accumulation based on inequality was a vital part of the pre-war order of Society and of progress as we then understood it, and to emphasize that this principle depended on unstable psychological conditions, which it may be impossible to recreate. It was not natural for a population, of whom so few enjoyed the comforts of life, to accumulate so hugely. The war has disclosed the possibility of consumption to all and the vanity of abstinence to many. Thus the bluff is discovered; the labouring classes may be no longer willing to forgo so largely, and the capitalist classes, no longer confident of the future, may seek to enjoy more fully their liberties of consumption so long as they last, and thus precipitate the hour of their confiscation. [John Maynard Keynes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes.md) · [The Economic Consequences of the Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes/the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-maynard-keynes/the-economic-consequences-of-the-peace/i-seek-only.md) Topics: [consumerism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consumerism.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The irony is that in our decades, the combination of rationalism, asceticism, and individualism (the so-called Protestant Ethic) has produced precisely the system of boondoggling, luxury-consumption, and status. [Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md) · [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) · p. 143 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/the-irony-is-that.md) Topics: [irony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony.md), [consumerism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consumerism.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The ideal of having a real job that you risk your soul in and make good or be damned, belongs to the heroic age of capitalist enterprise, imbued with self-righteous beliefs about hard work, thrift, and public morals. Such an ideal might still have been mentioned in public fifty years ago; in our era of risk-insured semimonopolies and advertised vices it would be met with a ghastly stillness. [Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md) · [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) · p. 36 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/the-ideal-of-having.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > It's universally wrong to steal from your neighbor, but once you get beyond the-one-to-one level and pit the individual against the multinational conglomerate, the federal bureaucracy, the modern plantation of agro-buinsess, or the utility company, it becomes strictly a value judgement to decide exactly who is stealing from whom. One person's crime is another person's profit. Capitalism is license to steal; the government simply regulates who steals an how much. I always wanted to put together an outlaw handbook that would help raise consciousness on these points while doing something about evening the score. There was also the challenge of testing the limits of free speech. [Abbie Hoffman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abbie-hoffman.md) · [Steal This Book](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abbie-hoffman/steal-this-book.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abbie-hoffman/steal-this-book/its-universally-wrong.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [theft](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/theft.md) > I thought that, given the system of rewards central to our economic system, in which profit maximization is valued above all else and specifically above life, it is probably just as irresistible to the owners of capital (human or otherwise) to exploit workers (and the land): "Nothing personal," they say as they load their property onto the ship bound for the Middle Passage, "but a man's gotta turn a dime." [Derrick Jensen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/derrick-jensen.md) · [The Culture of Make Believe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/derrick-jensen/the-culture-of-make-believe.md) · p. 102 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/derrick-jensen/the-culture-of-make-believe/i-thought-that.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > One morning he spent three hours talking about feudalism—how it was the clearest political expression of primate dominance dynamics, how it had never really gone away, how transnational capitalism was feudalism writ large, how the aristocracy of the world had to figure out how to subsume capitalist growth within the steady-state stability of the feudal model. [Kim Stanley Robinson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson.md) · [Green Mars](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars.md) · p. 80 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars/one-morning-he-spent.md) Topics: [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The most powerful entities on earth are not governments but the multi-national corporations that see women as their territory, indoctrinating them with their versions of beauty, health and hygiene, medicating them and cultivating their dependency in order to medicate them some more. [Germaine Greer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/germaine-greer.md) · [The Whole Woman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/germaine-greer/the-whole-woman.md) · p. 336 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/germaine-greer/the-whole-woman/the-most-powerful.md) Topics: [women](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > "...If you could ever get the poor to vote in this country, you'd have socialism. But people want to think rich. That's the genius of the capitalist system: either you're rich, or you want to be, or you think you ought to be." [John Hoyer Updike](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike.md) · [Rabbit at Rest](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike/rabbit-at-rest.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike/rabbit-at-rest/if-you-could.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > There is no peace and no rest in the development of material interests. They have their law, and their justice. But it is founded on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude, without the continuity and the force that can be found only in a moral principal. [Joseph Conrad](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad.md) · [Nostromo](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/nostromo.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/nostromo/there-is-no-peace.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > All idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity — it is to destroy it. Leave that to the moralists, my boy. History is made by men, but they do not make it in their heads. The ideas that are born in their consciousness play an insignificant part in the march of events. History is dominated and determined by the tool and the production — by the force of economic conditions. Capitalism has made socialism, and the laws made by the capitalist for the protection of property are responsible for anarchism. No one can tell what form the social organisation may take in the future. Then why indulge in prophetic phantasies? At best they can only interpret the mind of the prophet, and can have no objective value. Leave that pastime to the moralists, my boy. [Joseph Conrad](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad.md) · [The Secret Agent](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/the-secret-agent.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/the-secret-agent/all-idealization-makes.md) Topics: [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property — on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success. [Philip Roth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth.md) · [Portnoy's Complaint](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/portnoys-complaint.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/portnoys-complaint/american-society-not.md) Topics: [money](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money.md), [jealousy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/jealousy.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Private enterprise did not get us atomic energy. [John Kenneth Galbraith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith.md) · [The Affluent Society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-affluent-society.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-affluent-society/private-enterprise-did.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with communism, lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound. [John Kenneth Galbraith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith.md) · [The Great Crash 1929](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929.md) · p. 194 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/but-now-as-throughout.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. [Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [The Past Through Tomorrow](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/the-past-through-tomorrow.md) · p. 25 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/the-past-through-tomorrow/there-has-grown.md) Topics: [law](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/law.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The market had reasserted itself as an impersonal force beyond the power of any person to control, and, while this is the way markets are supposed to be, it was horrible. [John Kenneth Galbraith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith.md) · [The Great Crash 1929](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929.md) · p. 111 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/the-market-had.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > In times of peace, the capitalists used to guarantee their interests by means of the "peaceful" robbery of hired labor. During the war they served those same interests by means of the destruction of countless human lives. [Leon Trotsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leon-trotsky.md) · [Terrorism and Communism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leon-trotsky/terrorism-and-communism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leon-trotsky/terrorism-and-communism/in-times-of-peace.md) Topics: [war](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > There is no wilderness where I can hide from these things, there is no haven where I can escape them; though I travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursed system — I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed! And therefore I cannot rest, I cannot be silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness, health and good repute—and go out into the world and cry out the pain of my spirit! [Upton Sinclair](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair.md) · [The Jungle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle/there-is-no-wilderness.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > It was the incarnation of blind insensate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs: it was the Great Butcher — it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh. Upon the ocean of commerce it sailed as a pirate ship; it had hoisted the black flag and declared war upon civilization. Bribery and corruption were its everyday methods. In Chicago the city government was simply one of its branch offices. [Upton Sinclair](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair.md) · [The Jungle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle/it-was-the.md) Topics: [greed](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/greed.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The working-man was to fix his hopes upon a future life, while his pockets were picked in this one; he was brought up to frugality, humility, obedience—in short to all the pseudo-virtues of capitalism. [Upton Sinclair](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair.md) · [The Jungle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle/the-working-man-was.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > It was all so painfully obvious to Jurgis! It was so incomprehensible how a man could fail to see it! Here were all the opportunities of the country, the land, and the buildings upon the land, the railroads, the mines, the factories, and the stores, all in the hands of a few private individuals, called capitalists, for whom the people were obliged to work for wages. The whole balance of what the people produced went to heap up the fortunes of these capitalists, to heap, and heap again, and yet again—and that in spite of the fact that they, and every one about them, lived in unthinkable luxury! And was it not plain that if the people cut off the share of those who merely "owned," the share of those who worked would be much greater? [Upton Sinclair](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair.md) · [The Jungle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle/it-was-all.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [social inequality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/social-inequality.md) > Congressman Nixon had asked me why, as the son of immigrants who had been treated so well by Americans, as a man who had been treated like a son and been sent to Harvard by an American capitalist, I had been so ungrateful to the American economic system. > > The answer I gave him was not original. Nothing about me has ever been original. I repeated what my one-time hero, Kenneth Whistler, had said in reply to the same general sort of question long, long ago. Whistler had been a witness at a trial of strikers accused of violence. The judge had become curious about him, had asked him why such a well-educated man from such a good family would so immerse himself in the working class. > > My stolen answer to Nixon was this: "Why? The Sermon on the Mount, sir." [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md) · [Jailbird](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/jailbird.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/jailbird/congressman-nixon-had.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant's father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand. [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md) · [The Sirens of Titan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/the-sirens-of-titan.md) · p. 56 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/the-sirens-of-titan/rumfoord-had-known.md) Topics: [beauty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill. [Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [The Black Swan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-black-swan.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-black-swan/i-disagree-with.md) Topics: [chance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/chance.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Voice of Reason](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-voice-of-reason.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-voice-of-reason/every-coercive-monopoly.md) Topics: [the state](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-state.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Let anyone who believes that a high standard of living is the achievement of labor unions and government controls ask himself the following question: If one had a "time machine" and transported the united labor chieftains of America, plus three million government bureaucrats, back to the tenth century—would they be able to provide the medieval serf with electric light, refrigerators, automobiles, and television sets? [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism/let-anyone-who.md) Topics: [technology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Capitalism is the only system where such men are free to function and where progress is accompanied, not by forced privations, but by a constant rise in the general level of prosperity, of consumption and of enjoyment of life. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Virtue of Selfishness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness/capitalism-is-the.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism/americas-abundance-was.md) Topics: [America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/america.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man's well-being is not their goal. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism/capitalism-has-created.md) Topics: [poverty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poverty.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism/in-a-capitalist.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/capitalism/every-government-interference.md) Topics: [the state](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-state.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Virtue of Selfishness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness/when-i-say.md) Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The conflict between capitalism and democracy is inherent and continuous; it is often hidden by misleading propaganda and by the outward forms of democracy, such as parliaments, and the sops that the owning classes throw to the other classes to keep them more or less contented. A time comes when there are no more sops left to be thrown, and then the conflict between the two groups comes to a head, for now the struggle is for the real thing, economic power in the State. When that stage comes, all the supporters of capitalism, who had so far played with different parties, band themselves together to face the danger to their vested interests. Liberals and such-like groups disappear, and the forms of democracy are put aside. This stage bas now arrived in Europe and America, and fascism, which is dominant in some form or other in mast countries, represents that stage. Labour is everywhere on the defensive, not strong enough to face this new and powerful consolidation of the forces of capitalism. And yet, strangely enough, the capitalist system itself totters and cannot adjust itself to the new world. It seems certain that even if it succeeds in surviving, it will be but another stage in the long conflict. For modern industry and modern life itself, under any form of capitalism, are battlefields where armies are continually clashing against each other. [Jawaharlal Nehru](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru.md) · [Glimpses Of World History](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru/glimpses-of-world-history.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru/glimpses-of-world-history/the-conflict-between.md) Topics: [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md) > The big lie of American capitalism is that corporations work in their own best interests. In fact they’re constantly doing things that will eventually bring them to their knees. Most of these blunders involve toxic chemicals that any competent chemist should know to be dangerous. They pump these things into the environment and don’t even try to protect themselves. The evidence is right there in public, almost as if they’d printed up signed confessions and sprinkled them out of airplanes. Sooner or later, someone shows up in a Zodiac and points to that evidence, and the result is devastation far worse than what a terrorist, a Boone, could manage with bombs and guns. All the old men within twenty miles who have come down with tumors become implacable enemies. All the women married to them, all the mothers of damaged children, and even those of undamaged ones. The politicians and the news media trample each other in their haste to pour hellfire down on that corporation. The transformation can happen overnight and it’s easy to bring about. You just have to show up and point your finger. [Neal Stephenson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson.md) · [Zodiac](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/zodiac.md) · p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/zodiac/the-big-lie.md) Topics: [ecology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology.md), [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md)