“In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter.”

— Wendell Berry

"Conserving Forest Communities".
Another Turn of the Crank (1996)
Context: By this time, the era of cut-and-run economics ought to be finished. Such an economy cannot be rationally defended or even apologized for. The proofs of its immense folly, heartlessness, and destructiveness are everywhere. Its failure as a way of dealing with the natural world and human society can no longer be sanely denied. That this economic system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people’s choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is often the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter." by Wendell Berry?

Wendell Berry 189

author 1934

Related quotes

“By this time, the era of cut-and-run economics ought to be finished. Such an economy cannot be rationally defended or even apologized for. The proofs of its immense folly, heartlessness, and destructiveness are everywhere. Its failure as a way of dealing with the natural world and human society can no longer be sanely denied. That this economic system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people’s choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is often the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"Conserving Forest Communities"
Another Turn of the Crank (1996)

“It remains to be seen, for example whether China can continue to develop as a market economy while still retaining an authoritarian communist political system.”

Peter Dicken (1938) British geographer

Source: Global Shift (2003) (Fourth Edition), Chapter 17, Making a Living in Developing Countries, p. 569

“There is today hardly any country in the world outside the communist bloc which does not have a mixed economy. In fact, even countries which call themselves socialist would object to theirs not being described as a mixed economy, for it would imply that it was a totalitarian one, while countries like Germany or Japan, usually thought of as having typically free enterprise economies, would do the same; for, otherwise, it would imply that theirs was a nineteenth century laissez-faire economy.”

J. R. D. Tata (1904–1993) Indian businessman

Address on 'Why a Mixed Economy?' to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, New Delhi, April 4, 1975.
Keynote: Excerpts from his speeches and chairman's statements to shareholders

“To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Address on Latin American Policy before the Southern Commercial Congress http://books.google.com/books?id=_VYEIml1cAkC&q=%22I+would+rather+belong+to+a+poor+nation+that+was+free+than+to+a+rich+nation+that+had+ceased+to+be+in+love+with+liberty%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage Mobile, Alabama (27 October 1913)
1910s

“The matter of jurisprudence is positive law: law, simply and strictly so called : or law set by political superiors to political inferiors.”

John Austin (legal philosopher) (1790–1859) legal philosopher

Source: The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), p. 1; opening line

“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.”

Эрл Уилсон (1934–2005) American baseball player

“As I said last year, each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its own people. Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty, that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1=
2010

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Act V
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Source: The Doctor's Dilemma: A Tragedy

“A totalitarian political religion is incompatible with free investigation.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Gulf

Gulf (p. 545)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

“In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Wendell Berry 189

Related quotes

Related topics