Cornel West Quotes

Hey, you got something going here. I think we've got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and working people.

It is because of capitalism that we can pay for services to poor people that we don't even know.

Our objectives are socialist. That means an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people.

This left-wing kind of speech, the Robin Hood thing that Pablo had, of course he was a criminal and a mean person, but it wasn't a false. He wasn't false. I don't know what kind of president he would be, maybe a very bad one, but I am sure he would do things for poor people - popular things that wouldn't solve their lives but would help them.

Governance should be designed as an equalizer. Democrats are more inclined towards working families and those who are struggling for a better life.

If that's your definition of the Clinton faction, then I think that that seems to be in ascendancy. That might include a guy like John Edwards, who's just starting this new center in Chapel Hill to deal with issues of poverty and work.

Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.

The Occupy Wall Street project feels like a burning ember that might light the torch of justice and inflame our longing for freedom.

I love being down at Occupy Wall Street. The sincerity, the youth involvement, the desire for better, is palpable and moving. There is true caring, sharing, and refreshingly naive hope.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.

You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force.

There's a wider agenda that speaks to what the Democratic Party has historically stood for, which are economic rights for those who are struggling in the middle class, concern for the poor, for economic justice for those who are marginalized in our society.

It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.

Republicans are the party of the rich. The Democrats are the party of the people.

A political movement is that in which the proletarians as a class exert pressure against the ruling classes.

We used to wage war on poverty—not poor people.

We will not rest until this war [on poverty] is won.

Whatever has been done in Western Europe to bring about more justice, more security, more educational opportunities, more welfare and more state responsibility for the poor and the helpless, could never has been achieved without the pressure if socialist ideologies and socialist movements, for all their naiveties and illusions.

We in America were worried about many problems dealing with economic inequality and political inequality. The Communist Party seemed to be the only political force, both concerned and willing, to take action to stop the threat of fascism abroad and to work for economic and political reform in this country.

Inequality in the developed world fell for most of the 20th century; we can make it fall for most of the 21st century, too. But it won't happen without sustained pressure on politicians from electorates.

I volunteered to join Mr. Trump's campaign because he is a champion of working families, not Washington-Wall Street elites.

I'm against having a Fed. It's socialism in its worst form. But until the Fed is gotten rid of, the only economic variable the poor have to counteract the injustices of the Fed is the minimum wage law.

I think one of the most important facts of basic income would be that it's not only a redistribution of income, but also of power. So the cleaners and bin men would have a lot more bargaining power.

You are not going to lift everybody out of poverty through the kindness of wealthy people.

We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage.