Michael Parenti Quotes

Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.

Are we prepared to take on the enormous political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?

You can't have the capitalist system if an increasing number of people think it is unjust.

The capitalist class rules but does not govern: it contents itself with ruling the government.

There is not a more dangerous experiment than to place property in the hands of one class, and political power in those of another... If property cannot retain the political power, the political power will draw after it the property.

The economic owning class is always the political ruling class.

Why certain political classes want purposefully to keep Americans in a state of perpetual debt and uncertainty and why certain people don't want a middle class - because middle class creates a certain happiness. You know what I mean?

Our society will always remain an unstable and explosive compound as long as political power is vested in the masses and economic power in the classes. In the end one of these powers will rule. Either the plutocracy will buy up the democracy, or the democracy will vote away the plutocracy.

These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

Controlling capitalism has proved far more difficult than controlling anything else, because capitalism is based on the control of the many by the few—the reverse of the conventional definition of political democracy.

Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form the government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds of government - democracy and oligarchy.

We are giving away the country so a few very rich people can get richer.

There are too many people trying to take opportunity from people in the middle class.

Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.

The interesting thing about class warfare is that it's only class warfare if it's up, not down. If you talk about welfare cheats or something, that's not class warfare because it's down; you have to talk about rich people before it's class warfare.

As Brooks Adams put it, the sole problem of our ruling class is whether to coerce or to bribe the powerless majority.

If we're going to be successful in taking on the billionaire class, we need a strong national grassroots movement.

Democracy cannot long survive when the people permit their lives to be dominated - economically or politically - by a powerful few.

The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or Japan.

What neo-capitalism does so brilliantly is that it's always subdividing and dividing, so that people are never able to be joined in their numbers and strength in a unified way. That is exactly what we have to overcome.

The class war is over.

A smaller government reflecting the needs of the middle class and poor is superior to a big government reflecting the needs of the privileged and powerful.

It's a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped America of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.