Quotes for capitalism final

“The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next 3 or 4 years of foreign food and other essential products—principally from America—are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character.”

“The Marshall Plan,” George Marshall, 1948

The European Recovery Program (or Marshall Plan) was signed into law, April 3, 1948. The United States transferred $13.3 billion to 17 European countries (equivalent to $137 billion).

“She sits bestride the world like a Colossus. No other power at any time in the world's history has possessed so varied or so great an influence on other nations.. . . Half the wealth of the world, more than half the productivity, nearly two thirds of the world's machines are concentrated in American hands; the rest of the world lies in the shadow of American industry. . ."

The British historian Robert Payne, describing the U.S. after visiting America in 1948 and 1949.

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

The key role of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first Republican elected since Herbert Hoover. From a 1954 letter to his conservative brother, Edgar.

“The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity,”

as Keynes wrote in 1937—right around the time that FDR ignored his advice.

• compensatory spending

• “pump priming”

“The New Deal is today remembered as a model for what progressive government should do….But these progressives rarely note that Roosevelt’s New Deal, must like the democracy that produced it, rested on the foundation of Jim Crow.”

Ta Nahesi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” 2014 essay

“No man who owns his own home and lot can be a Communist, he

has too much to do.”

William Levitt

“We in America today are nearer the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”

Hoover’s nomination speech

"The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill,

representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it

right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective

countries on which they base their hopes for a better future of the world.

• First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

• Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed

wishes of the peoples concerned;

• Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which

they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those

who have been forcibly deprived of them;

• Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the

enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the

trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

• Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic

field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement,

and social security;

• Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace

which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries,

and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in

freedom from fear and want;

• Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without

hindrance;

• Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual

reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be

maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which

threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the

establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of

such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures

which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments

"The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill,

representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it

right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective

countries on which they base their hopes for a better future of the world.

• First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

• Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed

wishes of the peoples concerned;

• Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which

they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those

who have been forcibly deprived of them;

• Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the

enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the

trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

• Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic

field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement,

and social security;

• Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace

which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries,

and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in

freedom from fear and want;

• Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without

hindrance;

• Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual

reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be

maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which

threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the

establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of

such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures

which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

“The Hitler Nuremberg laws and the laws in the Southern states imposing special disabilities upon Negroes are both examples of laws similar in principle to FEPC. Opponents of such laws who are in favor of FEPC cannot argue that there is anything wrong with them in principle, that they involve a kind of state action that ought not to be permitted. They can only argue that the particular criteria used are irrelevant. They can only seek to persuade other men that they should use other criteria instead of these.

Friedman’s chapter on “Capitalism and Discrimination” in his book Capitalism and Freedom 1962

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So, governments' programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.”

Speech in favor of Goldwater, 1964. “A time for choosing”

"I mean, Kemp-Roth [Reagan's 1981 tax cut] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.... It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down.' So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory." Of the budget process during his first year on the job, Stockman was quoted as saying, "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers.”

David Stockman, Reagan’s OMB Director, the

“Father of Reaganomics”

“Declarations that global capitalism was in crisis were nothing new,”

Cassidy final chapter: contemporary capitalism faces its greatest “crisis of legitimacy” since the 1930s.

“Any prediction of capitalism’s demise needs to take account of its powers of rejuvenation, as Marx himself points to, and the ability of governments to manage it through sticky patches” (504).

“capitalism’s ability to shape-shift in response to new circumstances and policy regimes.”

Cassidy notes that people have been predicting the end of capitalism for centuries

“It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party – the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

SPEECH OF CONSERVATIVE SENATOR JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ) ON THE SENATE FLOOR IN 2017, EARLY IN TRUMP’S FIRST TERM. IN THIS SPEECH, HE ANNOUNCED HE WOULDN’T RUN FOR RE-ELECTION.

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism”

Mark Fisher (1968-2017)