Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how capitalism can lead to the oppression of the less fortunate under the guise of liberty.
Bertrand Russell's quote reveals a paradox in capitalist societies, where the principles of freedom and liberty are often used to justify the unrestrained power of the wealthy over the underprivileged. It suggests that while capitalism promotes individual liberties, it can simultaneously perpetuate inequality, allowing the fortunate to exercise their power in ways that can harm the less fortunate.
In practice
In a discussion about economic systems and their societal impacts.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
For many decades - and this was reinforced by the broadcast networks' standards-and-practices department - bad guys on TV had to get their comeuppance, and good guys had to be brave and true and unconflicted. Those were the laws of the business.
When one bell is rung, by the sound of that one bell other bells will also vibrate. So it is with the dancing of the soul...it produces its reaction, and that again, will make other souls dance.
Pour out wine till I become a wanderer from myself; for in selfhood and existence I have felt only fatigue.
Hollywood is a strange place if you're in trouble. Everybody thinks it's contagious.
Every Night and every Morn Some to Misery are born. Every Morn and every Night Some are born to Sweet Delight, Some are born to Endless Night.
I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.