Paul Cockshott > Quotes

“It is interesting how the advocates of social inequality think that the wealthy respond to quite different incentives from the poor. If the rich are to be persuaded to work, they require the stimulus of still greater wealth: hence the paramount importance of reducing taxes on high incomes. When dealing with the poor, in contrast, it is held that there is nothing like the prospect of still greater poverty as a work incentive: hence the paramount importance of strictly limiting the benefits to which they are entitled.”
― Paul Cockshott, Towards a New Socialism

“Talk of equality of educational opportunity is hollow so long as hard economic reality reminds you that society considers you inferior. Beyond what it buys, pay is a symbol of social status; and a levelling of pay will produce a revolution in self-esteem. Increased comfort and security for the mass of working class people would be accompanied by a rise in their expectations for themselves and their children.

If society values people equally in terms of money, it encourages them to aspire to equality in terms of education and culture. Education is an enrichment that goes beyond money, but ‘to him that hath shall be given’. At present educational opportunity runs alongside money. Once working-class people win economic equality they will have the confidence to seek cultural and educational equality for themselves and their children. In the process a huge economic potential will be liberated. Human creativity and ingenuity is our ultimate resource—develop that through education and economic progress follows. ”
― Paul Cockshott, Towards a New Socialism

“Human society has to work to survive. Our food, clothing, and shelter are won by work and, as every parent knows, the next generation is raised by work. Society is, before all else, a collective effort to ensure its own physical continuity.”
― Paul Cockshott, How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day