25 Quotes That Explain Why Capitalism is Better Than Socialism

Saying that socialism is better than capitalism is the equivalent of saying that a diet composed of Twinkies, pizza, and nachos is better for us in every way than a diet composed of whole foods. It’s obviously untrue. Sure, if you’re a healthy person and eat mostly healthy foods, you may be able to get away with eating a little of that garbage, but the more of it you consume, the worse off you are. It’s really no different with socialism. Just as junk food doesn’t create health, socialism doesn’t create wealth.

It always starts with, “Your life is going to get better because we’re going to take things from other people so we can give it to you for free,” and ends with, “It’s not our fault you’re poorer, less free, and everything is falling apart! The capitalists sabotaged us, and it wasn’t real socialism anyway.”

Socialism NEVER builds wealth because it is deadweight built on top of the contributions of productive people. The more you weigh the makers in your society down with takers, the less the makers are able to carry the load until eventually they’re crushed, and your population is eating the dogs.

Just in case you’ve never read an economics book, voted for Mamdani in NYC, or think Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders make sense for some unknown reason, here are 25 quotes to help explain it.

1) “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” — Winston Churchill

2) “Well, first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy; it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.” — Milton Friedman

3) “Capitalism is the most cooperative system ever created for the peaceful improvement of people’s lives. It has only a single fatal flaw: It doesn’t feel like it. The market system is so good at getting people—from all over the world—to work together that we barely notice how much we’re cooperating.” — Jonah Goldberg

4) “A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.” — F.A. Hayek

5) “Socialism is for those who think most people are losers. Capitalism is for those who think most people can take care of themselves.” — John Hawkins

6) “In practice, socialism didn’t work. But socialism could never have worked because it is based on false premises about human psychology and society, and gross ignorance of human economy. In the vast library of socialist theory (and in all of Marx’s compendious works), there is hardly a chapter devoted to the creation of wealth, to what will cause human beings to work and to innovate, or to what will make their efforts efficient. Socialism is a plan of morally sanctioned theft. It is about dividing up what others have created. Consequently, socialist economies don’t work; they create poverty instead of wealth. This is an unarguable historical fact now…” — David Horowitz

7) “This isn’t new. Those who favor socialism always make the moral case for it. The truth is, maybe they actually believe in it, but in the real world, socialism harms; it weakens the economies of countries that have tried it. It just does. Weaker economies hurt everybody in them. Socialism kills incentive, opportunity, freedom. It is the opposite of what America is all about. Look, socialism always harms the people it claims to help the most. It handicaps them, leaving them weaker, less self-determined, less free.” — Bobby Jindal

8) “Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty than ever in human history.” — Charles Krauthammer

9) “Socialism is when the 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.” — Bob Latta

10) “Capitalism is about the mutual creation of wealth rather than the pillaging of it.” — Ted Malloch

11) “It is the common error of Socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen. Let them once attain any state of existence which they consider tolerable, and the danger to be apprehended is that they will thenceforth stagnate, will not exert themselves to improve, and by letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration. Competition may not be the best conceivable stimulus, but it is at present a necessary one, and no one can foresee the time when it will not be indispensable to progress.” — John Stuart Mill

12) “The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight!” — Ludwig von Mises

13) “The growth of world prosperity is not a ‘miracle’ or any of the other mystifying terms we customarily apply to countries that have succeeded economically and socially. Schools are not built, nor are incomes generated, by sheer luck, like a bolt from the blue. These things happen when people begin to think along new lines and work hard to bring their ideas to fruition. But people do that everywhere, and there is no reason why certain people in certain places during certain periods in history should be intrinsically smarter or more capable than others. What makes the difference is whether the environment permits and encourages ideas and work or instead puts obstacles in their way. That depends on whether people are free to explore their way ahead, to own property, to invest for the long term, to conclude private agreements, and to trade with others. In short, it depends on whether or not the countries have capitalism.” — Johan Norberg

14) “The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country.” — Lyn Nofziger

15) “Yes, in socialism the rich will be poorer - but the poor will also be poorer. People will lose interest in really working hard and creating jobs.” — Thomas Peterffy

16) “Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.” — Ayn Rand

17) “Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.” — Leonard Read

18) “All systems are capitalist. It’s just a matter of who owns and controls the capital -- ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free-market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system, such as we find today in socialist nations.” — Ronald Reagan

19) “You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.” — Adrian Rogers

20) “The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production, which unavoidably also means production for the masses… It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars, and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls.” — Joseph Schumpeter

21) “People say capitalism is selfishness. No, socialism is selfishness. The idea that I have to pay for you to paint watercolors in your basement is a selfish philosophy.” — Ben Shapiro

22) “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” — Adam Smith

23) “The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn’t work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.” — Thomas Sowell

24) “Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.” — William Howard Taft

25) “What is socialism? The longest road from capitalism to capitalism.” — Soviet joke

Bonus) “Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” — Alexis de Tocqueville

Bonus) “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering, and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.” — Walter Williams

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