Oswald Spengler: Socialism

Oswald Spengler was German historian and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on socialism.
Oswald Spengler: 46   quotes 7   likes

“If by "democracy" we mean the form which the Third Estate as such wishes to impart to public life as a whole, it must be concluded that democracy and plutocracy are the same thing under the two aspects of wish and actuality, theory and practice, knowing and doing. It is the tragic comedy of the world‑ improvers' and freedom‑ teachers' desperate fight against money that they are ipso facto assisting money to be effective. Respect for the big number—expressed in the principles of equality for all, natural rights, and universal suffrage—is just as much a class‑ ideal of the unclassed as freedom of public opinion (and more particularly freedom of the press) is so. These are ideals, but in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune. The representatives of the ideas look at one side only, while the representatives of money operate with the other. The concepts of Liberalism and Socialism are set in effective motion only by money. … There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money—and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

Source: Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, pp. 401–02 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.49906/page/n893/mode/2up
Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Welthistorische Perspektiven (1922)
The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)

Democracy , Freedom , Money , Question

“Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes.”

Oswald Spengler

Source: The Hour of Decision

“Socialism means power, power, and more power. Thoughts and schemes are nothing without power. The path to power has already been mapped: the valuable elements of German labor in union with the best representatives of the Old Prussian state idea, both groups determined to build a strictly socialist state to democratize our nation in the Prussian manner; both forged into a unit by the same sense of duty, by the awareness of a great obligation, by the will to obey in order to rule, to die in order to win, by the strength to make immense sacrifices in order to accomplish what we were born for, what we are, what could not be without us.”

Oswald Spengler

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Idea , Sense

“Among the political attitudes that prevail in Germany today, only socialism has the potentiality of inner value and integrity.”

Oswald Spengler

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

“The meaning of socialism is that life is dominated not by the contrast of rich and poor but by rank as determined by achievement and ability. That is our kind of freedom: freedom from the economic capriciousness of the individual.”

Oswald Spengler

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Life , Freedom

“From a strictly technical viewpoint, socialism is the principle of public service. In the final analysis every worker has the status not of a businessman, but of a public servant, as does every employer..”

Oswald Spengler

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)