Quote

Generosity toward the lower classes historically has never been an important part of upper-class awareness.

Michael Parenti

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michael Parenti
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: January 1
Historian
Journalist
Political Scientist
New York City
New York
Never
Lower
Generosity
Toward
Awareness
Policy
Class
Upper
Part
Historically
Important
Classes

More quotes by Michael Parenti

Image
When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.
Michael Parenti
Image
Conservatives are fond of telling us what a wonderful, happy, prosperous nation this is. The only thing that matches their love of country is the remarkable indifference they show toward the people who live in it.
Michael Parenti
Image
Russia became a juicy chunk of the Third World, with immense reserves of cheap labor, a vast treasure of natural resources, and industrial assets to be sold off at giveaway prices.
Michael Parenti
Image
Our fear that communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti- communism already has.
Michael Parenti
Image
The powers that be not only try to control events, but they try to control our memory and understanding of these events, which is part of controlling the events themselves.
Michael Parenti
Image
The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth.
Michael Parenti
Image
The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment-or at least much handicap-to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.
Michael Parenti
Image
The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments.
Michael Parenti
Image
To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.
Michael Parenti
Image
You see there are people who believe the function of the police is to fight crime, and that's not true, the function of the police is social control and protection of property.
Michael Parenti
Image
Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places.
Michael Parenti
Image
The close relationship between politics and economics is neither neutral nor coincidental. Large governments evolve through history in order to protect large accumulations of property and wealth.
Michael Parenti
Image
The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.
Michael Parenti
Image
The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny.
Michael Parenti
Image
Even though the crime rate has dropped in recent years, the United States has more police per capita then any other nation in the world.
Michael Parenti
Image
The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened rather then undermined democratic forces.
Michael Parenti
Image
The US government is usually on the wrong side against the poor and downtrodden, because the wrong side is the right side, given the class interests upon which the [US] policy is fixed.
Michael Parenti
Image
Actually, the New Deal's central dedication was to business recovery rather than social reform.
Michael Parenti
Image
[The ruling elites] know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad. Their enemies are anybody who wants more social justice, anybody who wants to use the surplus value of society for social needs rather than for individual class greed, that's their enemy.
Michael Parenti
Image
All economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they should be replaced by something more responsive, more just, and more democratic. Marx said this, and so did Jefferson. It is a revolutionary doctrine, and very much an American one.
Michael Parenti