Exploitation Quotes

“Somebody is born.
Somebody goes to school.
Somebody learns to conform.
Somebody types a CV.
Somebody gets a job.
Somebody follows orders.
Somebody gets a golden watch.
And then, eventually,
Somebody dies.
And, a Nobody is buried.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Confessions of a Misfit

“Never before in history has such a sweeping fervor for freedom expressed itself in great mass movements which are driving down the bastions of empire. This wind of change blowing through Africa, as I have said before, is no ordinary wind. It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand [...] The great millions of Africa, and of Asia, have grown impatient of being hewers of wood and drawers of water, and are rebelling against the false belief that providence created some to be menials of others. Hence the twentieth century has become the century of colonial emancipation, the century of continuing revolution which must finally witness the total liberation of Africa from colonial rule and imperialist exploitation.”
― Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite

“I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

“How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the "market" put a price on things - food, clothes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the REAL cost of production?”
― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

“Instead of loving people and using money, people often love money and use people.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“Indeed, girls can be so in need of social approval that they confuse harassment for acceptance--thinking that any attention is better than none. Since many girls as well as boys buy the idea that sexual aggression and exploitation is normal masculine behavior, it may not even occur to them to demand to be treated as equals.”
― Leora Tanenbaum, Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation

“Capitalism has turned human beings into commodities. To the owner of a restaurant: the cook and a bag of potatoes are equally important.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Even their insistence on educating their children, the last reflex of any exploited group before it sank into submission, marked the end of their resistance.”
― J.G. Ballard, High-Rise

“We must realize that violence is not confined to physical violence. Fear is violence, caste discrimination is violence, exploitation of others, however subtle, is violence, segregation is violence, thinking ill of others and condemning others are violence. In order to reduce individual acts of physical violence, we must work to eliminate violence at all levels, mental, verbal, personal, and social, including violence to animals, plants, and all other forms of life.”
― Satish Kumar, The Buddha and the Terrorist

“As long as you're scared you're on the plantation.”
― Cornel West

“Political prisoners describe:
- extreme physical and emotional torture
- distortion of language, truth, meaning and reality
- sham killings
- begin repeatedly taken to the point of death or threatened with death
- being forced to witness abusive acts on others
- being forced to make impossible "choices"
- boundaries smashed i.e. by the use of forced nakedness, shame, embarrassment
- hoaxes, 'set ups', testing and tricks
- being forced to hurt others

Ritual abuse survivors often describe much the same things.”
― Laurie Matthew, Who Dares Wins

“To dream" means to focus and zoom the photos of destiny called visions for clearer view, manipulation and exploitation.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Retirement is a stage where an employer discards an employee that he cannot exploit further.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A job interview is a competition won by those who are qualified the most, and, those who are willing to be payed the least.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Employment is the exploitation of the employer’s courage, and, the employed’s fear of failure.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“All the enormous machines that keep full Citizens comfortable far above us in their glittering towers, all the infrastructure of power, of fuel, of commerce and industry—all of it happens below. Made possible with our hands. With our bodies.

With our lives.

I would have done anything to escape.

I got my chance. I made it out—but the price was loneliness.”
― Julio-Alexi Genao, When You Were Pixels

“Old Age homes are civilization's dumpsites for human beings who it cannot exploit further.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The existence of excessive nationalism is a symptom of a deeper problem in the collective consciousness, which is continually being exploited.”
― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

“وقتی ضعف و انکسار ملت خود را دیدم، دانستم که ما ناگزیریم با سلاح وقت مسلح شویم و آن آموختن تمام علوم امروزی بود، وگرنه ما را جزو ملل وحشی می‌شمردند و برما آقائی را روا می دیدند، و آموختن آن اگر به‌زبان خارجی بود البته میسر نمی‌شد[...] پس بایستی آن علوم و فنون را ما ترجمه کنیم و در دسترس مکاتب بگذاریم و این میسر نمی‌شود جز بدین‌که اول لغات خود را بدانیم و این کار نوشتن لغت‌نامه‌ای شامل و کافل ِ تمام لغات را، لازم داشت. این بود که به‌فکر تدوین لغت‌نامه افتادم.”
― علی‌اکبر دهخدا, (مقالات دهخدا (جلد یکم

“*Customer service* is seldom about the customer; it is usually about the seller’s chances of making more money from that customer in future.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.”
― Mason Cooley

“In a nutshell, the process they [abusers in a ritual abuse group] use on survivors is designed to:
break the will and personality of the person until they become as
nothing... with no will of their own...no identity...then they...
rebuild the person & shape their will in order to...try and
make the person one of them...thus gaining
power

If abusers hold all the power, becoming one of them can, for some, be the only means of survival. However, this doesn't always work, instead survivors often find ways of regaining their own power and fighting back.”
― Laurie Matthew, Who Dares Wins

“Some abusers organise themselves in groups to abuse children and other adults in a more formally ritualised way. Men and women in these groups can be abusers with both sexes involved in all aspects of the abuse. Children are often forced to abuse other children. Pornography and prostitution are sometimes part of the abuse as is the use of drugs, hypnotism and mind control. Some groups use complex rituals to terrify, silence and convince victims of the tremendous power of the abusers. the purpose is to gain and maintain power over the child in order to exploit. Some groups are so highly organised that they also have links internationally through trade in child-pornography, drugs and arms.

Some abusers organise themselves around a religion or faith and the teaching and training of the children within this faith, often takes the form of severe and sustained torture and abuse. Whether or not the adults within this type of group believe that what they are doing is, in some way 'right' is immaterial to the child on the receiving end of the 'teachings' and abuse.”
― Laurie Matthew, Who Dares Wins

“What is this so-called 'employment flexibility'? It simply means that employers, in their quest to reduce costs whilst trying to meet the demands of globalisation, are disregarding the traditional job boundaries – often to the detriment of the unskilled, non-standard worker. Employers use non-standard workers to avoid restrictive labour laws and collective bargaining restraints. In addition, the practice provides them with more flexibility.”
― E.S. Fourie

“As long as you're scared you're on the plantation.”
― Cornal West

“The municipality sent water through six Annawadi faucets for ninety minutes in the morning and ninety minutes at night. Shiv Sena men had appropriated the taps, charging usage fees to their neighbors. These water-brokers were resented, but not as much as the renegade World Vision social worker who had collected money from Annawadians for a new tap, then run away with it.”
― Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

“Every historical form of society is in its foundation a form of organization of labor. While every previous form of society was an organization of labor in the interests of a minority, which organized its State apparatus for the oppression of the overwhelming majority of the workers, we are making the first attempt in world history to organize labor in the interests of the laboring majority itself.”
― Leon Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky

“If she were honest, weakness should be masked at all times. Any weakness could, and would be exploited.”
― Callie Hunter, The Artist

“That blasted family could never look at a living thing without wanting to make a profit out of it, preferably by killing it.”
― Halldór Laxness, Independent People

“A flat tire is like a bad attitude, you won't go anywhere until you change it.”
― Winston Brown, Nomad