What imperialists actually wanted was expansion of political power without the foundation of the body politic. Imperialist expansion had been touched off by a curious kind of economic crisis, the overproduction of capital and the emergence of "superfluous" money, the result of oversaving, which could no longer find productive investment within national borders. For the first time, investment of power did not pave the way for investment of money, since uncontrollable investments in distant countries threatened to transform large strata of society into gamblers, to change the whole capitalist economy from a system of production to a system of financial speculation, and to replace the profits of production with profits in commissions. The decade immediately before the imperialist era, the seventies of the last century, witnessed an unparalleled increase in swindles, financial scandals, and gambling in the stock market. . Hannah Arendt
Some Similar Quotes
  1. After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was. - Terry Eagleton
  2. Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool... - Ayn Rand
  3. America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization.... - Ayn Rand
  4. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade... - Ayn Rand
  5. In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big — ironically,... - Terry Eagleton
More Quotes By Hannah Arendt
  1. I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help.
  2. When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.
  3. The common prejudice that love is as common as "romance" may be due to the fact that we all learned about it first through poetry. But the poets fool us; they are the only ones to whom love is not only a crucial, but an...
  4. The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
  5. The world and the people who inhabit it are not the same. The world lies between people, and this in-between — much more than (as is often thought) men or even man — is today the object of the greatest concern and the most obvious...
Related Topics