Author: Scotty Hendricks / Source: Big Think
- Like many ideologies, socialism can be many things to different people.
- These ten quotes show what it means to ten different thinkers, including Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.
- While they leave the question of what socialism is unsettled, they do offer us great insights.
Socialism is one of those words that has been used so many times to describe so many different ideologies that it has lost all meaning. That doesn’t stop people from trying to describe it though. Here, we have ten quotes by ten brilliant thinkers, capitalist and socialist alike, describing what socialism is.
Che defines socialism
“For us, there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another.” – Che Guevara
Ernesto “Che” Guevara was an Argentine revolutionary known for his participation in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. He was trained as a doctor and took a view of socialism as a cure for the disease of capitalism. His views of what the world would be like after the disease was cured were often as romantic as our view of him, but they all tend to center on the idea of a world free of exploitation and alienation which was inhabited by a more complete human being than was typical under capitalism.
Does Che Guevara still matter?
Albert Einstein on the need for a socialist economy
“The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor… I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.” – Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a physicist well known for his theory of relativity. He once wrote an article advancing his socialist political views. In this quote, he explains the socialist belief that the disorganization of capitalism and the vicious competition it demands leads to many social ills and that the cure for it is collective ownership.
Debs explains what he stands against
“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.” – Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs was an American labor leader and socialist presidential candidate who got six percent of the vote in 1912.
In this quote, given to the court that convicted him for sedition for opposing American entry into WWI, he expresses a key socialist idea: That the wealth of society is produced by workers and the capitalist system unjustly allows that wealth to be concentrated in the hands of people who do nothing but own capital.
MLK on the distribution of wealth
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”– Martin Luther King Jr.
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American minister and activist well known for his participation in the civil rights movement.
King was a democratic socialist who was as dedicated to economic justice as he was to civil rights. This quote speaks to a very basic socialist concept; that the current distribution of wealth is unjust and must be corrected through fundamental changes to our economic system. King, like many other socialists, bases this view on his Christian beliefs.
Wealth inequality is literally killing us. The economy should work for everyone.
No, socialists don’t all love the USSR. Anton Pannekoek explains why.
“The system of production developed in Russia is State socialism. It is organized production, with the State as universal employer, master of the entire production apparatus. The workers are master of the means of production no more than under Western capitalism. They receive their wages and are exploited by the State as the only mammoth capitalist. So the name State capitalism can be applied with precisely the same meaning. The entirety of the ruling…
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