Top 1200 Democratic Socialism Quotes & Sayings

In the past 20 years and more since China embarked on the road of reform and opening up, we have moved steadfastly to promote political restructuring and vigorously build democratic politics under socialism.

The Democratic Party is now a political mechanism having a genuine political principle: national socialism.

Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.

I think Obama has redefined the Democratic Party. It used to be the party of acid, amnesty, and abortion, and now it's surrender, socialism, and subprime mortgages.

We must ever keep in mind that collectivized socialism is part of the communist strategy. Communism is fundamentally socialism. We will never win our fight against communism by making concessions to socialism.

You must have, if socialism was to succeed, a socialism with lots of democratic elements in it.

We know growing technological developments in artificial intelligence, automation and big data mean that democratic socialism in the 21st century must adapt to such a rapidly changing world.

It is time we had democratic socialism for working families, not just Wall Street billionaires.

The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn't work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.

Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas. It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist.

For me, democratic socialism is about - really, the value for me is that I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.

Democratic socialism is not only a poor electoral strategy - it's a disastrous governing model.

My view of democratic socialism builds on the success of many other countries around the world that have done a far better job than we have in protecting the needs of their working families, their elderly citizens, the children, the sick and the poor.

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.

"Religious Socialism," "Christian Socialism," are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.

In effect, according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible. By gaining democratic freedoms the working masses come to power.

I have one of the strongest records in fighting for senior citizens. I led the effort to prevent cuts to Social Security. But I think for some seniors, they remember the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. They conflated the term "democratic socialism" with communism.

In my personal opinion, Russia is no less democratic than it used to be. It is a democratic country. It is democratic enough.

Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about. ... In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing.

Democratic socialism means that our government does everything it can to create a full employment economy.

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it.

This old Germany was partly defeated in its conflict with the progressive ideas of socialism, for it had given the people nothing that could serve as a successful alternative to socialism.

There is only one hope for mankind - and that is democratic Socialism.

Whether considered as a doctrine, or as an historical fact, or as a movemement, socialism, if it really remains socialism, cannotbe brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic church.... Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.

We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?

No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect... To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.

According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible.... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy.

I think democratic socialism will ultimately prevail in this country because it makes an enormous amount of sense.

National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with a democratic order.

Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve.

The greatest factors making for communism, socialism or anarchy among a free people are the excesses of capital. The talk of the agitator does not advance socialism one step. The great captains of industry and finance... are the chief makers of socialism.

Democracy is not compatible with capitalism but is congruent with a version of democratic socialism in which the wealth, resources, and benefits of a social order are shared in an equitable and just manner.

I think of myself as a democratic capitalist, although I think the word 'socialism' loses its meaning every time that it is used to describe literally any policy left of far right by the current Republicans.

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

I certainly hoped that in the Eastern part of Germany, what was just beginning to be called the German Democratic Republic, you would develop a system of socialism with freedom and democracy.

It's ironic that socialism and similar left-wing ideas appeal to people who fashion themselves as 'anti-establishment,' when you can't have socialism without political repression.

The Socialist Party will no longer be running a candidate for president. The Democratic Party is leading this country to Socialism much faster than we could ever hope to.

The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator.

Socialism isn't just a list of economic prescriptions for government. Perhaps above all, socialism is a moral view.

If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.

We have to re-invent socialism. It can't be the kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union, but it will emerge as we develop new systems that are built on cooperation, not competition.

'Democratic socialism' is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy. And 'social democracy' - a term that better fits the belief of more ordinary liberals who want, say, Medicare for all - is a politically dying force. Democrats who aren't yet sick of all their losing should feel free to embrace them both.

Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines.

Democratic socialism means, that in a democratic, civilized society, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.

States can be more or less democratic, and so can socialism. I think any ideal society that exists on a large scale, which is what we most likely have in store for us as a human race, will involve some aspects of socialism.

What is the most effective, practical way of raising the wealth of nations? What causes wealth? I have come to think that the dream of democratic socialism is inferior to the dream of democratic capitalism, and that the latter's superiority in actual practice is undeniable.

To me, democratic socialism means democracy. It means creating a government that represents all of us, not just the wealthiest people in the country.

I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.

The socialism that India can assimilate is the socialism of the spinning wheel.

Everything brought forward in favor of Socialism during the last hundred years, in thousands of writings and speeches, all the blood which has been spilt by the supporters of Socialism, cannot make socialism workable.

Socialism has been an abject failure across the face of the globe, millions have suffered under socialism, and yet we're not doing an effective job communicating that.

Like most terms of political discourse, socialism has more or less, lost its meaning. Socialism used to mean something. If you go back far enough it meant basically control of production by producers, elimination of wage labor, democratization of all spheres of life; production, commerce, education, media, workers control of factories, community control of communities, and so on. That was socialism once. But it hasn't meant that for a hundred years. Socialism meant something different.

Democratic socialism means that we must reform a political system that is corrupt, that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

When socialism comes into power, the Roman Church will advocate socialism with the same vigor [with which] it is now favoring feudalism and slavery.

The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule.

Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn't exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn't possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey.

The goal of socialism is a fairer allocation of economic resources, which its advocates often claim will also be a less wasteful one. Socialism is about who gets the goods and how. Socialism objects to markets because markets allocate resources in ways socialists believe to be unfair on both counts: both the who and the how.

Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.

The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there's no dictatorship here.