Li Shufu Quotes

There isn't much in the way of pure communist spirit, because the whole nation seems to be engaged in capitalistic enterprises. Much of the country still operates under government control.

There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way.

Tyranny is the political corollary of socialism, as representative government is the political corollary of the market economy.

Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite backed up by the brute force of government.

Most countries choose to have government run the economy.

First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice.

Socialism is when government's taking care of you, you send all your money to the government, the government decides how to spend it instead of letting the people spend it and make all those decisions.

The party cannot relinquish its leading role in the economy.

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.

The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.

[Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous.

Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say "But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time.

Government central planning means over-riding other people's plans.

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

Where there is no market economy, the best intentioned provisions of constitutions and laws remain a dead letter.

People have put a lot of faith in the government's ability to get growth going in China. People have this, what I think, illusion that there are six people in China who really have their hand on every button. And what we're learning is, it's a very big economy and they're not that good at it.

It doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property?

It has been a long fight to put the control of our economic system in the hands of the government.

What is politically defined as economic planning is the forcible superseding of other people's plans by Government officials.

The inefficiency of political control of an economy has been demonstrated more often, in more places, and under more varied conditions, than almost anything outside the realm of pure science.

Everything you heard about me is true. . . . I am not a free marketer. . . . I believe in the heavy hand of government.

Americans are sick of the idea of the government taking over everything and trying to run it. We don't know how to run a bank, a car company.

Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individuals life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management.

It should not be the government running the economy.

Socialism requires that government becomes your god.