"There is only capitalism"

"America's Town Meeting: What Does Democracy Mean?" 02/03/1938
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/Radio/TownMeeting/TownMeeting.html

"There's a sense in which every country in the world is capitalist. The Soviet Union is capitalist. Every country in the world has large capital under control. And the real question is, of course, the organization whereby the capital is controlled. In the Soviet Union, it is controlled by the state or by officials of the state." - Milton Friedman

"I regard the greatest aberration of our times to be the belief that government ownership is identical with peoples' ownership." -Isaac don Levine

"Public ownership, so-called, con­trary to popular notions, is defi­nitely not we-the-people owner­ship. If it were, we could exchange our share in TVA or the Post Office for dollars, just as we can exchange a share of corporation stock for dollars." - Leonard Read

"The primary all embracing issue in the world today is the choice between private capitalism and state capitalism, sometimes called socialism...Lenin established state capitalism or socialism wherein the state owns the tools of production and every worker is an employee of the state. Hitler, in turn, imitated the Marxist state, with minor variations, and named his brand of state capitalism national socialism, sometimes called Nazism." - Dr. Ruth Alexander

'Socialism' has become a word with positive connotations and no content...Your property is that which you control the use of. If most things are controlled by individuals, individually or in voluntary association, a society is capitalist. If such control is spread fairly evenly among a large number of people, the society approximates competitive free enterprise—better than ours does. If its members call it socialist, why should I object? Socialism is dead. Long live socialism." -David Friedman

"None of the various forms of socialism really deny property rights. Each form of socialism specifies an owner for every scare resource. If the state nationalizes an industry, it is asserting ownership of these means of production. If the state taxes you, it is implicitly asserting ownership of the funds taken. "

"One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property because they are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; but other people's. . . It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem." - G. K. Chesterton


"Well, now, Professor, isn't the difference between socialism and capitalism a matter of who owns and directs the tools of production—the government or private individuals?"
"That's substantially true: tools must be used in any highly developed economy;'
"Well, tools are capital. Capital is tools. No business has any reason to own anything that does not aid workers in producing or exchanging goods and services. Those things are tools. All corporate assets are tools of either production or exchange under socialism or capitalism."
"Well...I'll go along with that."
"Do you agree then that the capitalistic payment called profit is really payment for the use of tools—for the use of the savings required to buy the tools?"
"That would be one way of putting it."
"And must the use of those savings be paid for whether they are in the form of a common stock or a Government Bond? So what we are really arguing about is Private Capitalism versus State Capitalism."

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[jamieg1tube]

Thanks for posting this. The quotes in the description were interesting as well.

[sinthushan]

Who is the speaker and where can I find more of his speeches

[EquanimityJohn]

Bureaucracy? Easy resolution: Direct Democracy. Fuck Representatives and Capitalism! Power to the people and direct/participatory democratic economics (Libertarian socialism and Anarchist Communism)! Capitalism is a wealth concentrating system, allotting each individual a freedom to unchecked private totalitarian economic abuses. Down with the State, Down with Capitalism!