John Trudell Quotes

Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought.

If we make all of the people good, markets will be good. If markets are bad, which they are, that means people are bad, which they are. Want good markets? Change the people.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.

You have to believe that it's through politics that societies can lead social and economic and political change.

I can't get very excited about the House of Commons these days because I don't feel the power is there. What is really bizarre is that you sense it is not in Washington either. It is now very hard even to locate the levers of power, let alone to pull them and change things.

Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

Using political tools to change social conditions won't work.

The people weren't quite ready for a socialist production system.

Capitalism had been more revolutionary than any previous social system. It had swept away without scruples old institutions and modes of thought, if they were found to stand in its way.

Social change … almost inevitably leads to the rise of new political actors demanding a voice and a share of power.

The thing I have learned this year is that any improvement in the great mass of women is only possible through socialism…

Our system of market capitalism wasn't handed down, in perfect form, on stone tablets. We wrote the rules. We broke them. And we can fix them.

What strikes me - we're apparently at the mercy of an economic system that will never work and the big question is, how do we change it, not how do we put up with it.

If we genuinely believe in a bigger future for our country, we have to redistribute both wealth and power - so people can take back control for good, not just for one vote.

You cannot get a new economy without a new society.

While I haven't read economist Robin Hahnel's work, replacing capitalism would be at the very bottom of my list of priorities - to be considered only after everything else had been tried. Improving our capitalistic system however, is at the top of my list and is of course the major theme of "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism."

Populism is at its essence just determined focus on helping people be able to get out of the iron grip of the corporate power that is overwhelming our economy, our environment, energy, the media, government. One big difference between real populism and what the Tea Party thing is, is that real populists understand that government has become a subsidiary of corporations. So you can't say, let's get rid of government. You need to be saying let's take over government.

What I wanted to do was give society the information it needed to decide if it wanted to change the system.

If the present economic structure can change only by collapsing, then it had better collapse as soon as possible.

We're all connected by the system, and we all have to be a part, I think, of changing it.

We're building a movement. It's undeniably a work in progress, but there's a fundamental desire to see capitalism to do something different.

We have to change the kind of free trade deals we sign. We would have to change the absolutely central role of frenetic consumption in our culture. We would have to change the role of money in politics and our political system.

Things I've been talking about for a long time as systemic problems, the American public has also begun to see something needs to be done down here.

If you want to change things, politics is the best way to do that.