Albert Einstein warned that a time would come when the super-rich would control all communication, making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to make informed decisions.
Many of the social media posts paraphrase an essay by Einstein that was published in the independent socialist magazine Monthly Review in May 1949. What Einstein wrote is the same as the various paraphrases, but he was writing about things that were happening in 1949, not things that would happen in the future.
Social media posts have claimed for years that famed 20th century physicist Albert Einstein once warned that a time would come when the wealthy would control so much of the means of communication that it would be nearly impossible for ordinary people to make informed decisions. The most recent example of this claim we found as of this writing was posted on Facebook on March 20, 2024.
They also discovered another Facebook post containing Einstein's purported warning from February 2020.
It contained a screenshot of what appeared to be a post from X (formerly Twitter) two days ago, which read:
In 1949, Albert Einstein warned that a time would come when democracy would break down as the wealthy controlled so much of the communication media that it became all but impossible for ordinary people to make informed decisions.
We are living in the times Einstein warned about
Social media posts have been found that attribute this quote to Einstein. Tick tockIn addition to other posts posted on Facebook, X About this claim: Variations of this claim have appeared on these social media platforms. For example, on Facebook, Einstein is quoted as saying, “There will come a time when the rich own all the media, and it will be impossible for ordinary people to form informed opinions.” We have also received emails from Snopes readers asking about this claim.
Einstein essay The first issue of the independent socialist magazine Monthly Review, published in May 1949, featured an article entitled ‘Why Socialism?’ The article contained the following passage (boldfaced for emphasis):
Private capital tends to concentrate in a few hands, due to competition between capitalists and due to the development of technology and the expanding division of labor, which encourages the formation of large productive units at the expense of smaller ones. The result of this development is an oligarchy of private capital, whose enormous power cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true because the members of the legislative body are elected by political parties, which are financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists, effectively separating the electorate from the legislature. As a result, the people's representatives do not in practice adequately protect the interests of the less fortunate strata of the population. Moreover, the current situation, in which private capitalists are obliged to directly or indirectly control the main sources of information (press, radio, education), makes it extremely difficult, and in most cases completely impossible, for individual citizens to reach objective conclusions and wisely use their political rights.
The bold quote in the paragraph above translates to various paraphrases I’ve found on social media, which means that it will be difficult for people to make informed, objective decisions because the information sources will be controlled by private capitalists.
But the point is that Einstein was not writing about something that would happen in the future, but about what was happening in 1949. This is the key detail that the various paraphrases get wrong.
So we made our case. — Einstein once warned that a time would come when the wealthy would control so much of the communication that it would be nearly impossible for ordinary people to make informed decisions. — 'Mixed' rating.
We have previously fact-checked other quotes attributed to Einstein, which can be found below. here.
