Thabo Mbeki Quotes

It's not difficult in South Africa for the ordinary person to see the link between capitalism and racist exploitation, and when one sees the link one immediately thinks in terms of a socialist alternative.

Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.

In the society of to-day the means of production are a monopoly of the capitalistic class; the dependence of the working classes which results from this is the cause of misery and of servitude in all its forms.

Capitalism, racism and inhuman technocracy quietly develop in their own way. The causes of misery are no longer to be found in the inner attitudes of men, but have long been institutionalized.

The mistake the apartheid government made was they gave the black people nothing, so they had nothing to lose. But now a lot of the former freedom-fighters are big-time capitalists. They've been given directorships in every major company. They're billionaires!

Reckless capitalism kills black people.

Capitalism is in crisis.

Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.

The market economy is very good at wealth creation but not perfect at all about wealth distribution.

In countries operating a largely capitalist system, there does not appear to be a wide understanding among its actors and overseers of either its advantages or its hazards.

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

... the problem isn't that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France, before the revolution. And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won't last.

You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

The possibility of a liberal capitalist democracy in South Africa is exactly nil. The racialist propaganda amongst the whites and their desire to maintain what they imagine to be a profitable situation makes it utterly unthinkable that there can be a political alignment that favours a liberal white group. In any case the political immorality, cowardice and vacillation of the so—called progressives amongst the whites render them utterly useless as a force against fascism.

It’s no surprise that a global economy creates a global class conflict…. All markets create classes and class conflicts.

As part of the realization of the aim to eradicate racism in our country, we must strive to create and strengthen a black capitalist class… because we come from among the black oppressed, many among us feel embarrassed to state this goal as nakedly as we should.

The hour of capitalism’s greatest triumph is its greatest danger.

It is now time to mobilize, before it is too late, against the creeping legitimacy of racism in our society.

Poor whites have been pitted against poor blacks to assuage the conscience of the affluent.

Inequality is a good thing. You can’t have a capitalistic system without it. But we have excessive inequality now. Virtually all the benefits are going to a small group of people.

There is a profound unfairness embedded in the economic system.

In the United States you have socialism for the rich and free markets for the poor.

We live in a world today where the capitalists' confidence in their ability to rule has been shaken.

Triumphant capitalism has unleashed a powerful drive toward inequality, not improvement, in the social sphere.

This country is very good at creating wealth, but not very good at distributing it.