Oliver Cox

“Full text of Caste, Class, and Race; A Study in Social Dynamics at archive.org”

“The proletariat cannot vote for socialism in a bourgeois parliament because the capitalists will not permit themselves to be destroyed by their own instrument. The machinery of the capitalist state has been fashioned by the bourgeoisie to suit the needs of their class; therefore, in the achievement of its ends, the working class must contrive its own institutions.”

“The capitalists cannot conceivably eliminate the proletariat as a class; it could at most only temporarily destroy or drive its leadership underground. On the other hand, the proletariat can eliminate the capitalists completely; it must do this if socialism is to be achieved.”

“The purpose of capitalist democracy is to provide a favorable situation for the exercise of free enterprise and not for the planning of a society that will make business a social service. If the commonality attempts to take the latter view of democracy and to implement it, the capitalist will quickly scrap the institution.”

“Much of the sanctimonious abhorrence displayed by the ruling class and its apologists against the use of violence in the class struggle is rooted in the desire to maintain the integrity of its class monopoly of violence.”

“The law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is a logical impossibility for another class to assume power legally.”

“Christianity and Brahmanism go back to different basic premises. The one holds that in the beginning man was created in the likeness of God, while, the other maintains that from an original being came men into the world originally unequal, with special emphasis upon the god's conscious purpose that men should forever remain socially unequal.”

“"Racial antagonism is part and parcel of this class struggle, because it developed within the capitalist system as one of its fundamental traits. It may be demonstrated that racial antagonism, as we know it today, never existed in the world before about 1492; moreover, racial feeling developed concomitantly with the development of our modern social system." ibid. pg. xxx”

“"it should not be forgotten that, above all else, the slave was a worker whose labor was exploited in production for profit in a capitalist market. It is this fundamental fact which identifies the Negro problem in the United States with the problem of all workers regardless of color."”

“"It is remarkable that some of the most precious rights of human welfare are attributed to the advocacy and practice of communists; and yet, in the same breath, we are asked to hate communists."”