James Howard Kunstler Quotes

For me, I love and hate Costco. I think it's ruined America and made America great.

Somewhere along the way to free-market capitalism, the United States became the most wasteful society on the planet.

I like where we're going with technology and global integration, but the fact that corporations and dollars rule everything in our lives, I don't like it. This isn't the Hollywood I wanted to be part of.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

I think we're in an era of unprecedented dominance by corporations. I think people understand that deeply; I don't think that's even questioned.

I think this notion that it's the population of the U.S. against the big companies is just wrong.

Life, especially in America, is ruled by corporations.

I read Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' when I was 15. It's one of the things that's shaped my relationship to fame - to endorsements, to selling things.

Because of my politics, I don't necessarily think that the independent capitalist is that much better than the multinational capitalist; it's just that the independent capitalist hasn't grown as big yet.

I don't believe we're the party of big business.

A worker's paradise is a consumer's hell.

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

I don't know how it could be more stark or clear: this entire society is being dominated by corporate power in a way that may exceed what happened in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century.

Microsoft represents the best of ourselves or the worst.

Capitalism has forced everyone to overoptimize in order to compete.

Even one's own home is a kind of anthology of advertisers, manufacturers, motifs and presentation techniques. There's nothing 'natural' about one's home these days. The furnishings, the fabrics, the furniture, the appliances, the TV, and all the electronic equipment - we're living inside commercials.

Consumerism is so weird. It's a sort of conspiracy we collude in. You'd think shoppers spending their hard-earned cash would be highly critical. You know that the manufacturers are trying to have you on.

I'm totally anti-commercialism.

The relentless pressures of the so-called marketplace have distorted all our culture industries.

The American Dream, coupled with government subsidies of utilities and cheap consumer goods courtesy of slave labour somewhere else, has kept the poor huddled masses from rising up.

Mass consumption, advertising, and mass art are a corporate Frankenstein; while they reinforce the system, they also undermine it.

Combinations [large corporate conglomerates], governed entirely by the law of greed … threaten the integrity of our institutions.

There seems to be something sacrosanct about big business.

Capitalism will kill competition.

We oppose monopoly, the tendency of which is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.