158 Quotes by John Ralston Saul

The neo-conservatives, who are closely linked to the neo-corporatists, are rather different. They claim to be conservatives, when everything they stand for is a rejection of conservatism. They claim to present an alternate social model, when they are little more than the courtiers of the corporatist movement. Their agitation is filled with the bitterness and cynicism typical of courtiers who scramble for crumbs at the banquet tables of real power, but are always denied a proper chair.

In reality high profits tend much more to raise the price of (a piece of) work than high wages. (quoting Adam Smith - ch.(III - From Corporatism to Democracy)

To say now that the negative results of globalization are simply Destiny is to say that a whole new round of social divisions and violence is also our Destiny. In other words, the collapsing job market, slipping standards of living, the loss of fair regulations, the evaporation of big business tax revenues and the weakening of social programs are inevitable and so we must begin the endless, sterile battles of social division all over again.(IV - From Managers and Speculators to Growth)

If individuals do not occupy their legitimate position, then it will be occupied by a god or a king or a coalition of interest groups. If citizens do not exercise the powers confered by their legitimacy, others will do so.(I - The Great Leap Backwards)

Bankers - pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted.

The citizen's job is to be rude - to pierce the comfort of professional intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt.

Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen.

Unregulated competition is a naive metaphor for anarchy.