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Aneurin Bevan
104 quotes
“The fact must be faced that Europe will never return to the practices, conventions and principles of pre-war. There is not only political paralysis in Western Europe; there is a profound lack of confidence in conventional values; and this is true for all social classes. This is accompanied by a deep spiritual malaise arising from a prolonged hesitancy to choose between a number of proffered alternatives. It is probably true that Western Europe would have gone Socialist after the war if Soviet behaviour had not given it too grim a visage. Soviet Communism and Socialism are not yet sufficiently distinguished in many minds. The large Communist votes in Western Europe, especially in France and Italy, are evidence that millions of men and women do not believe that competitive private enterprise has any future; at least of a sort that would commend itself to them. It is extremely doubtful whether the Communist vote is a vote for Communism. It is partly a protest vote and partly a demand for Democratic Socialism after the fashion of the first five years of the British Labour Government.”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The spiv has entered into modern literature not only as a by-product of a rationing system. He is the modern equivalent of the smuggler. He is the prototype of the evader of taxes. All this occasions the bitterest resentment among those citizens whose social situation forces them to pay in full. The consequences from a Socialist point of view of what really amounts to a penalisation of the honest and of those whose job does not permit evasion is exceedingly serious. The power and prosperity of tax evaders thwarts one of the main aims of Socialism: the establishment of just, social relationships.”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The political systems of the totalitarian nations might remain fixed for an indefinite time, if they could prevent the intrusion of modern industrial methods. But they are reaching out for these, and to the extent that they adopt them, they start the same chain of events that led to the growth of political democracy in the West. The only political system consistent with the needs of a modern industrial community is democracy. ... When you train workers to make the blueprints of modern industrial machines, to interpret the blueprints, make and work the machines, you are digging the grave of political dictatorship.”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It must now be accepted by all thoughtful citizens that the social and economic consequence of the rearmament programme is only a special instance of a general case. If full employment is accepted as an aim to be ensued, and not only given lip service to, then We have left the automatism of the competitive capitalist system behind us, and deliberate selection and choice at the communal level must take its place. A pool of unemployment is the necessary accompaniment of selection by the price mechanism. It is the shock absorber of the capitalist system. The pool decreases or increases in obedience to the ebb and flow of economic activity, and the unemployed are crucified on the cross of the competitive price mechanism. Security of employment and the competitive society are a contradiction in terms. To promise full employment is to promise the transition from the capitalist system to one where we choose consciously to order the pattern of production and consumption; and the principles we employ in the doing of this must commend themselves to the wishes of a free electorate.”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source