Thomas Frank Quotes

82 quotes in 1556 categories

• This aesthetic quality, then, is what politics is all about. It's authenticity that separates winners from losers, good politics from bad, and he-man leader-types from…
• Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary…
• Whereas liberals are thought to erupt self-righteously whenever they feel like it, conservatives believe that they themselves are never permitted to say what they really…
• Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad.
• Markets are interested in profits and profits only; service, quality, and general affluence are different functions altogether. The universal, democratic prosperity that Americans now look…
• Americans have known about mounting inequality and king-sized Wall Street bonuses for years. But we also had an entire genre of journalism dedicated to brushing…
• Conservatives may believe that impoverished borrowers destroyed Wall Street. But we liberals will not fool ourselves that stupid bankers sank conservatism for good.
• These days, of course, the focus of talk about popular liberation through products is mostly associated with the Internet. I've been collecting computer ads and…
• What becomes fascinating is the way the culture industry doesn't deny it and doesn't try to mitigate it, but tries to sell its products as…
• During the financial crisis and bailouts of 2008, it probably occurred to very few average people that we were entering a period of hardship for…
• In America, we no longer have an institutionalized, organized way of calling business to task - of taking them to account for what they've done…
• There is much to dislike about President Obama's approach to the financial crisis. But opposition, it seems, will have to come from somewhere other than…
• The thing now is to seem concerned in a vaguely social-democratic way.
• A lot of populists after populism died just became socialists. At the beginning of the 20th century, socialism looked like it was going to take…
• People are born in a certain place, and in a certain society. I don't mean to sound like a determinist, but to think we're entirely…
• One of the things I keep coming back to in my writing is that society doesn't work on this mirror principle - you don't have…
• Apparently, there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been…
• There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.
• I think there's great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but…
• In small towns, bored teenagers turn their eyes longingly to the exciting doings in the big cities, pining for urban amenities like hipster bars and…

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