Human Nature and Social Theory (1969)
Context: One will be conducive to cooperation and solidarity another social structure to competition, suspiciousness, avarice; another to child-like receptiveness, another to destructive aggressiveness. All empirical forms or human needs and drives have to be understood as results of the social practice (in the last analysis based on the productive forces, class structure, etc., etc.) but they all have to fulfill the functions which are inherent in man’s nature in general, and that is to permit him to relate himself to others and share a common frame of reference, etc. The existential contradiction within man (to which I would now add also the contradiction between limitations which reality imposes on his life, and the virtually limitless imagination which his brain permits him to follow) is what I believe to be one of the motives of psychological and social dynamics. Man can never stand still. He must find solutions to this contradiction, and ever better solutions to the extent to which reality enables him.
The question then arises whether there is an optimal solution which can be inferred from man’s nature, and which constitutes a potential tendency in man. I believe that such optimal solutions can be inferred from the nature of man, and I have recently found it quite useful to think in terms of what in sociology and economy is now often called »system analysis«. One might start with the idea, in the first place, that human personality — just like society — is a system, that is to say, that each part depends on every other, and no part can be changed unless all or most other parts are also changed. A system is better than chaos. If a society system disintegrates or is destroyed by blows from the outside the society ends in chaos, and a completely new society is built upon its ruins, often using the elements of the destroyed system to build the new. That has happened many times in history. But, what also happens is that the society is not simply destroyed but that the system is changed, and a new system emerges which can be considered to be a transformation of the old one.
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908)
2014
Source: Rally in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, quoted by First Post, "Modi welcomes Paswan to NDA: 'National Development Alliance'" http://www.firstpost.com/politics/modi-welcomes-paswan-to-nda-national-development-alliance-1416863.html (3 March 2014).
“The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no solution.”
Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 23 “In Loos Ptokai” (p. 137)
Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2
Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff, US Army (1 September 1945)
“In times of crisis, every country must find its own solutions”
On the refugee crisis, quoted on Express.co.uk, 'Don't come to Europe' Austria takes out ADVERTS begging Afghan migrants to stay at home http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/648941/Refugee-crisis-Europe-Austria-ADVERTS-begging-Afghan-migrants-stay-home, March 14, 2016.
“The only solution to the contradictions of capitalism entails the abolition of wage labour.”
Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 12, Production Of Spatial Configurations, p. 385
As quoted in an 2021 interview with Vladimir Pozner in "Robert Kocharyan: An unfair peace can not be lasting and sustainable" in Hyetert.org (6 April 2021) https://hyetert.org/2021/04/06/robert-kocharyan-an-unfair-peace-can-not-be-lasting-and-sustainable/
Source: 1940s - 1950s, Introduction to Operations Research (1957), p. 8, cited in: R.L. McCown (2001) "Learning to bridge the gap between science-based decision support and the practice of farming". In: Aust. J. Agric. Res., Vol 52, p. 560-561
“I believe it will take time to find a solution to the problem. Thus we must have patience.”
On the Bosnian War, as quoted in Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)
1990s
