“Socialism is the watchword and the catchword of our day. The socialist idea dominates the modem spirit. The masses approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal upon our time. When history comes to tell our story it will write above the chapter "The Epoch of Socialism."
As yet, it is true, Socialism has not created a society which can be said to represent its ideal. But for more than a generation the policies of civilized nations have been directed towards nothing less than a gradual realization of Socialism.”

— Ludwig von Mises , book Socialism

Introduction : The Success of Socialist Ideas
Socialism (1922)

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Ludwig von Mises 62

austrian economist 1881–1973

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“Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Duty of Inquiry
Context: Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handled on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

“Socialism with its ideal of the national control of consumption and production, its substitution of national barter for the processes of foreign trade, is by no means an international force. … It looks inwards rather than outwards and sets up a national economy, which every true protectionist should envy. Russia is a powerful national state and has indulged in nationalist policies. … Even a Socialist state cannot provide against war unless a world authority has been formed.”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Article in Young Oxford and War (1934), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (Victor Gollancz, 1994), p. 31
1930s

“There can be no doubt that the modem environment is changing faster than any environment ever previously changed; therefore, the social center of gravity constantly tends to shift more rapidly; and therefore modem civilization has unprecedented need of the administrative or generalizing mind. I take it to be an axiom, that perfection in administration must be commensurate to the bulk and momentum of the mass to be administered, otherwise the centrifugal will overcome the centripetal force, and the mass will disintegrate. In other words, civilization will dissolve. A moment arrives when the minds of any given dominant type fail to meet the demands made upon them, and are superseded by a younger type, which in tum is set aside by another still younger, until the limit of the administrative genius of that particular race has been reached. Then disintegration sets in, the social momentum is gradually relaxed, and society sinks back to a level at which it can cohere.”

Brooks Adams (1848–1927) American political writer

Source: The Theory of Social Revolutions,, p. 204-5, as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 9-10

“Utopism is the forerunner of all modem conceptions concerning social policy, social organization, and social peace. All the art of social engineering could not place one stone upon another in the social edifice if the broad outlines of the system as an idea had not been projected long before, and if the seeds of the motivating ideals had not early been sowed in the hearts of men.”

Fred Polak (1907–1985) Dutch futurologist

Source: The Image of the Future, 1973, p. 178

“Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true socialism is not.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech given on December 28, 1938, qouted in The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939 pg. 93 https://books.google.com/books?id=PxZoAAAAMAAJ&q=Our+adopted+term+%27Socialist%27+has+nothing+to+do+with+Marxian+Socialism.+Marxism+is+anti-property;+true+Socialism+is+not.&dq=Our+adopted+term+%27Socialist%27+has+nothing+to+do+with+Marxian+Socialism.+Marxism+is+anti-property;+true+Socialism+is+not.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjP_pa_xcLYAhVPRN8KHRk2CKsQ6AEIPjAE
1930s
Context: Socialist' I define from the word 'social; meaning in the main ‘social equity’. A Socialist is one who serves the common good without giving up his individuality or personality or the product of his personal efficiency. Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true socialism is not. Marxism places no value on the individual, or individual effort, of efficiency; true Socialism values the individual and encourages him in individual efficiency, at the same time holding that his interests as an individual must be in consonance with those of the community. All great inventions, discoveries, achievements were first the product of an individual brain. It is charged against me that I am against property, that I am an atheist. Both charges are false.

“Every generation expands its definition of equality. Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it’s our time to define a new social contract for our generation.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

Harvard Graduation Speech (2017)

“The spirit of the Right is dominated by scepticism towards the possibility of profound change in society and above all towards the idea that man can achieve progress over himself. On the Left, on the other hand, there exists a belief in human and social progress.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

L'Unité d'un Homme (November 1994), quoted in The Times (21 November 1994), p. 11
President of the European Commission

“After all, that’s exactly why we call ourselves National Socialists! We want to start by implementing socialism in our nation among our Volk! It is not until the individual nations are socialist that they can address themselves to international socialism.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: Disputed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (1978), p. 288

“It is a bourgeois feeling to overvalue the possession of representatives. In representation as in money there is power – power over others. Whoever places the purity and the greatness of our party above all else, for him representatives have value only in so far as they serve to give expression to the power and extent of Social Democracy. What do ten, what do a hundred representatives signify, when our escutcheon has lost its gloss through their acquisition? The value of a representative is small. But the value of the integrity of our party is immeasurable. In it rests our strength.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

As with the shorn hair, that signified his manhood’s honor, the strength of Samson disappeared, so the strength of our party would cease if we allowed the bourgeois Delilahs to flatter away our most precious jewel and the roots of our triumphal strength – the party purity, the party honor.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

“One way to clarify the origin and character, if not the justification, of the ideal inspiring our programmatic institutional ideas is to say that our program arises from the generalization of aims broadly shared by the great secular doctrines of emancipation of the recent past—both liberal and socialist—and by the social theories that supported them. At the heart of each of these doctrines lay the belief that the weakening of social divisions and hierarchies would reveal deeper commonalities and liberate productive and creative powers. The theoretical and practical consequences of this belief were drastically constricted by dogmatic assumptions about the possible forms of social change and their possible institutional expressions. We have attacked the second set of constraints and therefore, by implication, the first. The result is a more generalized or radicalized version of the social ideal. Our attack on these constraints has led us to rethink the content of the progressive cause.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: The Critical Legal Studies Movementː Another Time, A Greater Task (2015), p. 104-5

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Ludwig von Mises 62

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