Reichnekov

“It is the alienated insight into the actual objectification of man and into the actual appropriation of his objective nature by the destruction of the alienated character of the objective world, by the transcendence of the objective world in its alienated existence, just as atheism which transcends God is the emergence of theoretical humanism, and communism which transcends private property is the vindication of actual human life as man's property, the emergence of practical humanism. Or, atheism is humanism mediated through itself by the transcendence of religion, and communism is humanism mediated through itself by the transcendence of private property. Only through the transcendence of this mediation--which is, however, a necessary presupposition--emerges positive humanism, humanism emerging positively from itself.”
― Karl Marx, Selected Writings

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

“Indeed, the utopian nature of a market society cannot be better illustrated than by the absurdities in which the commodity fiction in regard to labor must involve the community. The strike, this normal bargaining weapon of industrial action, was more and more frequently felt to be a wanton interruption of socially useful work, which, at the same time, diminished the social dividend out of which, ultimately, wages must come. Sympathy strikes were resented, general strikes were regarded as a threat to the existence of the community. Actually, strikes in vital services and public utilities held the citizens to ransom while involving them in the labyrinthine problem of the true functions of a labor market. Labor is supposed to find its price on the market, any other price than that so established being uneconomical. As long as labor lives up to this responsibility, it will behave as an element in the supply of that which it is, the commodity "labor," and will refuse to sell below the price which the buyer can still afford to pay. Consistently followed up, this means that the chief obligation of labor is to be almost continually on strike. The proposition could not be outbidden for sheer absurdity, yet it is only the logical inference from the commodity theory of labor. The source of the incongruity of theory and practice is, of course that labor is not really a commodity, and that if labor was withheld merely in order to ascertain its exact price (just as an increase in supply of all other commodities is withheld in similar circumstances society would very soon dissolve for lack of sustenance.”
― Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson