Atheism Activists

"Much if not all we know about the complex mechanism responsible for the development (and stagnation) of productive forces, and for the rise and decay of social organizations, is the result of the analytical work undertaken by Marx and by those whom he inspired."

"I looked up to these Russians who could discuss by the hour the theories of Marx and Bakunin, who had participated in demonstrations and other revolutionary activity."

"As far as learning was concerned, Marx was, and still is, incomparably more advanced than I. I knew nothing at that time of political economy, I had not yet rid myself of my metaphysical observations… He called me a sentimental idealist and he was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was right."

"In my judgment Karl Marx [is right]… the real issues ultimately will be the economic issues."

"It can be maintained that Smith was a creator of general equilibrium theory, although the coherence and consistency of his work can be questioned. A fortiori, later systematic expositors of the classical system, such as Ricardo, J. S. Mill, and Marx, in whose work some of Smith’s logical gaps were filled, can all be regarded as early expositors of general equilibrium theory. Marx, in his scheme of simple reproduction, read in combination with his development of relative price theory in volumes 1 and 3 of Das Kapital, has indeed come in some ways closer in form to modern theory than any other classical economist, though of course everything is confused by his attempt to maintain simultaneously a pure labor theory of value and an equalization of rates of return on capital."

"One cannot discuss a socialism which has built an enormous industry by reducing the standard of living of the masses and a capitalism which has raised the standard of living, reduced working hours, and permitted the consolidation of labor unions, as if there were the same realities that Marx considered a century ago or that he anticipated according to a system which has since been refuted by events."

"Labor-power is a commodity sold by the worker in exchange for a "living wage." The worker, Marx insisted, "must constantly look upon his labour-power as his own property, as his own commodity, and this he can do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily: for a definite period of time. By this means alone, can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it.""

"The vision that impels feminists to action was the vision of the Grandmothers' society, the society that was captured in the words of the sixteenth-century explorer Peter Martyr nearly five hundred years ago. It is the same vision repeated over and over by radical thinkers of Europe and America, from François Villon to John Locke, from William Shakespeare to Thomas Jefferson, from Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, from Benito Juarez to Martin Luther King, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Judy Grahn, from Harriet Tubman to Audre Lorde, from Emma Goldman to Bella Abzug, from Malinalli to Cherrie Moraga, and from Iyatiku to me. That vision as Martyr told it is of a country where there are "no soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits... All are equal and free.""

"Be careful to trust a person who does not like wine."

"Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity."

"Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you're in need. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through."

"If we were to hang the last capitalist, another would appear to sell us the rope."

"We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us."

"Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism."

"Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time."

"The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs."

"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament."

"Last words are for fools who haven't said enough."

"Democracy is the road to socialism."

"In short, competition has to shoulder the responsibility of explaining all the meaningless ideas of the economists, whereas it should rather be the economists who explain competition."

"Since property here exists in the form of stock, its movement and transfer become purely a result of gambling on the stock exchange, where the little fish are swallowed by the sharks and the lambs by the stock exchange wolves."

"In a social order dominated by capitalist production even the non-capitalist producer is gripped by capitalist conceptions."

"Long hours of labour seem to be the secret of the rational and healthful processes, which are to raise the condition of the labourer by an improvement of his mental and moral powers and to make a rational consumer out of him."

"The process is so complicated that it offers ever so many occasions for running abnormally."

"These numerous points at which money is withdrawn from circulation and accumulated in numerous individual hoards or potential money-capitals appears as so many obstacles to circulation, because they immobilise the money and deprive it of its capacity to circulate for a certain time."

"Capitalist production does not exist at all without foreign commerce."

"As the variable capital always stays in the hands of the capitalist in some form or other, it cannot be claimed in any way that it converts itself into revenue for anyone."

"Since the working-class lives from hand to mouth,it buys as long as it has the means to buy."

"The aggregate capital appears as the capital stock of all individual capitalists combined. This joint stock company has in common with many other stock companies that everyone knows what he puts in, but not what he will get out of it."

"It appears then, that capitalist production comprises conditions independent of good or bad will, conditions which permit the working-class to enjoy that relative prosperity only momentarily, and at that always only as the harbinger of a coming crisis."

"The labour-power is a commodity, not capital, in the hands of the labourer, and it constitutes for him a revenue so long as he can continuously repeat its sale; it functions as capital after its sale, in the hands of the capitalist, during the process of production itself."

"On the other hand one must not entertain any fantastic illusions on the productive power of the credit system, so far as it supplies or sets in motion money-capital."

"But simultaneously with the development of capitalist production the credit system also develops. The money-capital which the capitalist cannot as yet employ in his own business is employed by others, who pay him interest for its use."

"In capitalist society however where social reason always asserts itself only post festum great disturbances may and must constantly occur."

"The capitalist cannot store labour-power in warehouses after he has bought it, as he may do with the raw material."

"Anyone wanting a new house picks one from among those built on speculation or still in process of construction. The builder no longer works for his customers but for the market."

"Titles of property, for instance railway shares, may change hands every day, and their owner may make a profit by their sale even in foreign countries, so that titles to property are exportable, although the railway itself is not."

"We have just seen that, apart from money-capital, circulating capital is only another name for commodity-capital. But to the extent that labour power circulates in the market,it is not capital, no form of commodity-capital. It is not capital at all; the labourer is not a capitalist, although he brings a commodity to market, namely his own skin."

"What strikes one here above all is the crudely empirical conception of profit derived from the outlook of the ordinary capitalist, which wholly contradicts the better esoteric understanding of Adam Smith."

"Volume II, Ch. VIII, p. 176-177."

"It goes without saying that the normal durability of fixed capital is calculated on the supposition that all the conditions under which it can perform its functions normally during that time are fulfilled, just as we assume, in placing a mans life at 30 years on the average,that he will wash himself."

"So far as living instruments of labour are concerned, for instance horses, their reproduction is timed by nature itself. Their average lifetime as instruments of labour is determined by the laws of nature. As soon as this term has expired they must be replaced by new ones. A horse cannot be replaced piecemeal; it must be replaced by another horse."

"As a beast of toil an ox is fixed capital. If he is eaten, he no longer functions as an instrument of labour, nor as fixed capital either."

"A circuit performed by a capital and meant to be a periodical process, not an individual act, is called its turnover. The duration of this turnover is determined by the sum of its time of production and its time of circulation."

"A house sold by A to B does not wander from one place to another, although it circulates as a commodity."

"Denn der Kapitalismus ist schon in der Grundlage aufgehoben durch die Voraussetzung, daß der Genuß als treibendes Motiv wirkt, nicht die Bereicherung selbst."

"In a constantly revolving circle every point is simultaneously a point of departure and a point of return. If we interrupt the rotation, not every point of departure is a point of return."

"The entire process seems simple and natural, i.e., possesses the naturalness of a shallow rationalism."

"So long as the product is sold, everything is taking its regular course from the standpoint of the capitalist producer."

"Nor is it the irrationality of the form which is taken as characteristic. On the contrary, one overlooks the irrational."