Social Systems Quotes - Page 4

• In Europe there's the upper crust, and these are long, historically families and social systems that have certain established rules that's harder to break into.

  Gloria Estefan

  Europe, Long, Break

  "Singer-songwriter Gloria Estefan". The Travis Smiley Show, www.pbs.org. September 27, 2011.

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• I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Men, Forever, Important

  Sinclair Lewis (2017). “It Can't Happen Here”, p.359, PublishDrive

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• Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Laissez Faire Capitalism, Recognition

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.35, Penguin

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• Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

  Ayn Rand

  Peace, Philosophy, Men

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.47, Penguin

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• The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality.

  Karl Marx

  War, Atmosphere, Tests

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• Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART.

  Joseph Beuys

  Art, Order, Social

  Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys (1979). “Joseph Beuys”

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• The determination of the average man is not merely a matter of speculative curiosity; it may be of the most important service to the science of man and the social system. It ought necessarily to precede every other inquiry into social physics, since it is, as it were, the basis. The average man, indeed, is in a nation what the centre of gravity is in a body; it is by having that central point in view that we arrive at the apprehension of all the phenomena of equilibrium and motion.

  Adolphe Quetelet

  Determination, Men, Views

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• But even in the absence of direct interference by those who had the power to interfere, the process was usually aborted by the non-availability of one of more elements of the process - the accumulated stock in a money form, the labor-power to be utilized by the producer, the network of distributors, the consumers who were purchasers. One or more elements were missing because, in previous historical social systems, one or more of these elements was not commodified or was insufficiently commodified.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Availability, Missing, Historical

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• What distinguishes the historical social system we are calling historical capitalism is that in this historical system capital came to be used (invested) in a very special way. It came to be used with the primary objective or intent of self-expansion. In this system, past accumulations were 'capital' only to the extend they were used to accumulate more of the same.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Past, Self, Historical

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• Capitalism is first and foremost a historical social system.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Historical, Firsts, Social

  Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1995). “Capistalist Civilisation”, p.13, Verso

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• The market economy-capitalism-is a social system of consumers' supremacy.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Economy, Social, Supremacy

  Ludwig Von Mises (1990). “Money, method, and the market process: essays”, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Recognition, Individual

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.17, Penguin

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• Mythology is the study of whatever religious or heroic legends are so foreign to a student's experience that he cannot believe them to be true. . . . Myth has two main functions. The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as: 'Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?'. . . . The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs.

  Robert Graves

  Religious, Children, Believe

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• In my work, I am not attempting to predict the future.  I am only pointing out what is possible with the intelligent application and humane use of science and technology.  This does not call for scientists to manage society.  What I suggest is applying the methods of science to the social system for the benefit of human kind and the environment.

  Jacque Fresco

  Intelligent, Technology, Doe

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• Social systems proceed by (usually) covering up the brutalities upon which they are based. The doctor doesn't let you get to his door and then turn you away, rather his home address is hard to find. The government handcuffs you so they don't have to shoot you trying to escape. And so on.

  Tyler Cowen

  Home, Doctors, Government

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• What distinguishes exemplary boards is that they are robust, effective social systems . . .The highest performing companies have extremely contentious boards that regard dissent as an obligation and that treat no subject as undiscussable.

  Jeffrey Sonnenfeld

  Boards, Social, Robust

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• The market economy is the social system of the division of labor under private ownership of the means of production. Everybody acts on his own behalf; but everybodys actions aim at the satisfaction of other peoples needs as well as at the satisfaction of his own. Everybody in acting serves his fellow citizens.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Freedom, Mean, Division Of Labor

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

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• The military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of its totality.

  Tony Judt

  Military, Independent, Social

  Tony Judt (2008). “Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century”, p.176, Penguin

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• We are losing our living systems, social systems, cultural systems, governing systems, stability, and our constitutional health, and we're surrendering it all at the same time.

  Paul Hawken

  Losing, Social, Stability

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• Individual talent is too sporadic and unpredictable to be allowed any important part in the organization society. Social systems which endure are built on the average person who can be trained to occupy any position adequately if not brilliantly.

  Stuart Chase

  Average, Organization, Important

  Stuart Chase (1948). “The Proper Study of Mankind ...: An Inquiry Into the Science of Human Relations”, New York : Harper

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• Constructing a social system that tends to those who agree with it is a piece of cake compared to constructing one that makes those who disagree with it want to obey its principles.

  Erik Naggum

  Cake, Principles, Pieces

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• Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Believe, Struggle, Class

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• A pacifism which can see the cruelties only of occasional military warfare and is blind to the continuous cruelties of our social system is worthless.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Military, Warfare, Poverty

  Mahatma Gandhi (2012). “The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas”, p.285, Vintage

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• The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.

  Ayn Rand

  Majority Rule, Liberty, Principles

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.522, Penguin

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• Charity is an ugly trick. It is a virtue grown by the rich on the graves of the poor. Unless it is accompanied by sincere revolt against the present social system, it is a cheap moral swagger. In former times it was used as fire insurance by the rich, but now that the fear of Hell has gone along with the rest of revealed religion, it is used either to gild mean lives with nobility or as a political instrument.

  Rebecca West

  Mean, Fire, Justice

  Rebecca West, Jane Marcus (1982). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, New York : Viking Press

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