Alex Callinicos > Quotes

“For what is socialism? With the frills removed, it is people collectively running society. Instead of being the prisoners of anarchic capitalist competition and the mad rush for profit at any cost, it is working together for the common good. Our tremendous co-operative power would be controlled, not by a ruling class in the search for ever greater profits, but democratically and for the fulfillment of human need.”
― Alex Callinicos, Revolutionary Road to Socialism

“Economic crises breed war.”
― Alex Callinicos, Revolutionary Road to Socialism

“Elections are supposed to be political occasions. In fact the opposite is true. The last thing politicians want to talk about at election-time is politics. What they want to talk about is votes. And the less you talk about politics, the more votes you're likely to win - otherwise you might offend someone.”
― Alex Callinicos, Revolutionary Road to Socialism

“Aristotle was the product of a slave society. The ruling class of the ancient world despised manual labor as an activity fit only for their slaves. Aristotle’s image of the good man is that of a slave owner who, free from the need to work for his living, is able to pursue the higher things of the mind. The same separation of mental and manual labor, itself a reflection of the class societies in which they lived, was made by all the great bourgeois philosophers, from Descartes to Hegel. All treated the life of the mind as the only important thing about human beings, and all assumed that someone else would do the work to provide them with the sordid material goods—food, clothing, lodging—that they needed in order to pursue the truth.”
― Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it” The most widely accepted view of history is also the most childish. History is seen as the doings of Great Men (and occasionally Great Women), of kings and politicians, generals and churchmen, artists and film stars. Such a conception of history can be traced back to the medieval chroniclers, who recorded the doings of monarchs and noblemen, their feasts, wars and adulteries. We are still served up with the same view, by courtesy of the most advanced technology, on the television screen and in the headlines of the daily tabloids.”
― Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx

“Saint-Simon was aware of the role of class struggle in history. Thus he divided contemporary French society into the industriels and the oisifs—those who worked, and the rich parasites who lived off their labor.”
― Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx