Leo Tolstoy book The Slavery of Our Times
Source: The Slavery of Our Times (1890), Chapter V: Why Learned Economists Assert What Is False
Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 415.
(Buch II) (1893)
Leo Tolstoy book The Slavery of Our Times
Source: The Slavery of Our Times (1890), Chapter V: Why Learned Economists Assert What Is False
G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer
Aphorisms
André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist
Detached Pages, entry for 1913
Journals 1889-1949
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Source: The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5
Context: Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the "petty" – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for "paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher
(1847)
Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist
"Women and the Myth of Consumerism", Ramparts (1969) http://fair-use.org/ellen-willis/women-and-the-myth-of-consumerism <br class="br">Context: Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may be minor compared to the pleasure of meaningful, autonomous work, but the former is easily available and the latter is not. A poor family would undoubtedly rather have a decent apartment than a new TV, but since they are unlikely to get the apartment, what is to be gained by not getting the TV?
Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist
Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 82
Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader
The Socialist Party and the Working Class (1904)