Capitalism will behave antisocially if it is profitable for it to do so, and that can now mean human devastation on an unimaginable scale. What used to be apocalyptic fantasy is today no more than sober realism.
Interpretation
Capitalism can lead to harmful consequences if profit is prioritized over social responsibility.
In this quote, Terry Eagleton warns that the nature of capitalism often prioritizes profit above all else, which can result in severe negative impacts on society. He suggests that what was once considered an extreme or fantastical outcome of capitalism has now become a realistic possibility, highlighting the urgent need to consider the ethical implications of economic systems.
In practice
During a debate on economic policies, one might reference this quote to highlight the dangers of profit-driven motives.
Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely thrust into the political unconscious can sovereignty feel secure.
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to acts of verbal understanding are so many and diverse that it is a minor miracle that they take place at all.
The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body.
Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.
Works of art cannot save us. They can simply render us more sensitive to what needs to be repaired.
I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One's enough.
No one in this country need go hungry, and alleviating the problem is primarily a matter of readjusting our priorities. In both the government and the private sector, self-interest has displaced the ideal of community that made this country great. The old world view of "us, we, our" has been replaced by "I, me, mine." The reasons for this are manifold and complex, but at the end of the day, we need to remember that, if one of us is suffering needlessly, all of us are diminished.
Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.
Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.
Peace can only be secured by justice; never by force of arms.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable . . .
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