Concentration Of Wealth Quotes

• We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nations to the changed conditions.

  James Madison

  Wisdom, Country, Hands

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• Diversification may preserve wealth, but concentration builds wealth.

  Warren Buffett

  Investing, May, Diversification

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• In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.

  Will Durant

  Numbers, Progressive Society, Rivals

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1968). “The lessons of history”, Simon & Schuster

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• While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

  Andrew Carnegie

  Science, Race, Hands

  1889 'The Gospel of Wealth', in the North American Review, Jun.

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• In the words of Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court justice, we have a choice between a democracy or vast concentrations of wealth. We have vast concentrations of wealth which has bought its way into our democracy with its political leaders who exemplify the merger of that economic and political elite.

  Jill Stein

  Justice, Choices, Leader

  "Off Message" with Glenn Thrush, www.politico.com. September 19, 2016.

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• Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

  Noam Chomsky

  Yield, Giving, Political

  Noam Chomsky (2012). “Occupy”, p.19, Penguin UK

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• The two great aims of industrialism — replacement of people by technology and concentration of wealth into the hands of a small plutocracy — seem close to fulfillment.

  Wendell Berry

  Technology, Hands, Two

  Wendell Berry (2012). “It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture & Other Essays”, p.22, Counterpoint Press

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• According to the World Bank, the concentration of wealth and the structures of corporate economic power have no bearing on woman's rights.

  Michel Chossudovsky

  Rights, World, Economic

  "The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order". Book by Michel Chossudovsky, 2003.

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• The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don't, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population.

  Charles Ferguson

  Real, Political, Challenges

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• Concentration of wealth and power has been built upon other people's money, other people's business, other people's labor. Under this concentration, independent business has been a menace to American society.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Independent, People, Menace

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• One of the major forces driving the decline in wages and the concentration of wealth at the top is the offshoring of American jobs overseas - reducing wages not only in manufacturing but also across the economy.

  Donald Trump

  Jobs, Wages, Driving

  "Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Discuss Student Debt, Immigration, and More". Interview with Judith Ohikuare, www.cosmopolitan.com. October 11, 2016.

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• I think that both Bernie [Sanders] and Hillary [Hillary] have highlighted how much, over the last few decades, we have seen the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

  Julian Castro

  Thinking, Hands, Lasts

  Source: www.npr.org

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• The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and laws.

  Will Durant

  Law, Politics, Moral

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1968). “The lessons of history”, Simon & Schuster

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• We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive redistribution.

  Will Durant

  Views, Economic History, Heartbeat

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (2012). “The Lessons of History”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

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• The free market is notorious for distributing resources in a highly unequal manner, with great concentrations of wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom. Our social programs, modest compared to those of many other Western countries, play an important role in redistributing some of those resources from the haves to the have-nots.

  Linda McQuaig

  Country, Play, Important

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• It [concentration of wealth and power] has been a menace to . . . American democracy.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Political, Democracy, Menace

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• In Egypt the neoliberal programs have meant statistical growth, like right before the Arab Spring, Egypt was a kind of poster child for the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund:] the marvelous economic management and great reform. The only problem was for most of the population it was a kind of like a blow in the solar plexus: wages going down, benefits being eliminated, subsidized food gone and meanwhile, high concentration of wealth and a huge amount of corruption.

  Noam Chomsky

  Children, Spring, Blow

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders / GRITtv, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

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• The problems of the global economy are not based in perception, but in the reality of prices, balance sheets and income statements, vast concentrations of wealth and power, precarious systemic imbalances, ruthless exploitation, and command economies mismanaged by Central State/Bank policy and manipulation.

  Charles Hugh Smith

  Reality, Perception, Balance

  "The 'Uncredible' Dog And Pony Show: Merkel And Sarkozy" by Charles Hugh Smith, www.businessinsider.com. October 10, 201.

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• New Jersey was actually a very cold place. There was such an intense concentration of wealth, and such a low concentration of any actual human happiness. A lot of people seem to be similar to the kid in school, which is doing a lot of things with no direct consequence to their joy, or their lives.

  Ezra Miller

  School, Kids, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Government schooling made people dumber, not brighter; made families weaker; ruined formal religion with its hard-sell exclusion of God; set the class structure in stone by dividing children into classes and setting them against one another; and has been midwife to an alarming concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a fraction of the national community.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Education, Children, Hands

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• Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.

  Robert Reich

  Democracy, Concerned, Wealth

  "Robert Reich's Call to 'Reason'". BuzzFlash Interview, www.alternet.org. June 16, 2004.

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