Corporations Quotes - Page 24

• In the early 1970s, Milton Friedman argued that corporations should not be socially responsible because they had no mandate to be; they existed to make money, not to be charitable institutions. But in the economy of the 21st century, corporations cannot be socially responsible, if social responsibility is understood to mean sacrificing profits for the sake of some perceived social good. That's because competition has become so much more intense.

  Robert Reich

  Business, Mean, Responsibility

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• As to the meaning of "corporate social responsibility," Friedman and I would agree: If a certain action improves the corporation's bottom line, there's no point in labeling it "socially responsible." It's just good business.

  Robert Reich

  Business, Responsibility, Lines

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• It's really tough for the small farmer to have a successful business. That is the big challenge - all the laws are designed for larger corporations. And that's going to be the challenge in this country; it goes beyond food.

  Robert Kenner

  Country, Successful, Law

  Source: www.cuesa.org

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• One doesn't have to be a large corporation to benefit from the advantages of volume. This can also be achieved through joint ventures.

  Norbert Reithofer

  Benefits, Venture, Joints

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• I believe that capitalism, at least how it's used by major corporations, and environmental concerns are in opposition. To be ecologically aware, productivity of many things would slow down at least for awhile. Stockholders don't want to hear about the saving of the whales or some stream in Kentucky. They want a return on their investment.

  Henry Rollins

  Believe, Kentucky, Whales

  Source: eluxemagazine.com

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• In Utah alone, ten million acres are open for business. Their policy is not about the public or the public's best interest. It is about the oil and gas corporations' best interests.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Utah, Oil, Acres

  Terry Tempest Williams (2006). “A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams”, Utah State Univ Pr

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• When I did big things, some large corporations like the Pennsylvania Railroad Company were behind me and responsible party.

  Andrew Carnegie

  Inspirational, Party, Pennsylvania

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• I would like to see a contribution-free election that permitted the people to vote as opposed to corporations. There really ought to be no money in the system except what an individual voter or citizen contributes out of his or her own pocket.

  Mickey Edwards

  People, Pockets, Citizens

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Asset bubbles have happened even without not-so-easy money. And, in a depressed economy, where alternative uses of money are not great, people are going to bid up the prices of profitable corporations and stuff like that.

  Paul Krugman

  People, Alternatives, Use

  "Why Paul Krugman thinks inflation fears are baloney". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. November 3, 2014.

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• Corporations care very much about maintaining the myth that government is necessarily ineffective, except when it is spending money on the military-industrial complex, building prisons, or providing infrastructural support for the business sector.

  Michael Lerner

  Military, Government, Support

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• A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.Most government is by the rich for the rich. Government comprises a large part of the organized injustice in any society, ancient or modern.Civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, and for the defence of those who have property against those who have none.

  Adam Smith

  Reality, Government, Criminals

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• We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.

  Daniel Webster

  People, Broken, Historical

  Daniel Webster, Edward Everett (1860). “Speeches in Congress”, p.413

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• Instead of a bottom-line based on money and power, we need a new bottom-line that defines productivity and creativity as where corporations, governments, schools, public institutions, and social practices are judged as efficient, rational and productive not only to the extent they maximize money and power, but to the extent they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and our capacities to respond with awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation.

  Michael Lerner

  Creativity, School, Caring

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• The media, the corporations, the politicians…have all done such a good job of scaring the American public, it’s come to the point where they don’t need to give any reason at all.

  Michael Moore

  Jobs, Media, Giving

  "Bowling for Columbine", www.imdb.com. 2002.

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• Global warming, the ongoing destruction of the planet, Third World debt, the uselessness of the railways, the takeover by the corporations, the scary George Bush person: all these things are important and should be animating me into outrage. Yet somehow they do not.

  Arthur Smith

  Scary, Important, Ongoing

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• We fought the Revolutionary War for no taxation without representation, it seems to me that we are much worse off today, because we are heavily taxed, and only the king's corporations control this Country, together with mob rule, of the special interests.

  James Montgomery

  Country, Kings, War

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• To survive, men and business and corporations must serve.

  John Henry Patterson

  Men

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• What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.

  Mother Jones

  Powerful, Unions, Corruption

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• Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either; on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.

  John Adams

  Art, America, Democracy

  John Adams (2001). “The Political Writings of John Adams”, p.432, Regnery Publishing

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• The real problem with the IRS is that they let General Electric not pay any taxes -- and 50 other corporations -- that's the real scandal.

  Michael Moore

  Real, Pay, Scandal

  "Michael Moore: The Real IRS Scandal Is That ‘They Let General Electric Not Pay Any Taxes’", www.huffingtonpost.com. May 19, 2013.

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• Given the fact that we are in a capitalist society, we still do not want to overlook not only what a corporation produces and its profitability but also how it impacts the environment, touches human life and whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person.

  Dean Smith

  Impact, Want, Facts

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• Large corporations welcome innovation and individualism in the same way the dinosaurs welcomed large meteors.

  Scott Adams

  Innovation, Meteors, Way

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• We have to develop a strong economic message which says every American is entitled to health care through a national health care program. And we're not going to allow these large corporations to push through trade agreements which allow them to throw Americans out on the street and run to China.

  Bernie Sanders

  Running, Strong, Agreement

  Interview with Ruth Conniff, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 1, 2005.

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• The corporations have become our government. They're not just influential. Department by department, you name it, they put their people in high government positions, they have 10,000 PACs and 35,000 lobbyists, so there's no more opening to be heard.

  Ralph Nader

  Government, Names, People

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. September 24, 2008.

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• The capitalist system of coordination by trade seems to be largely populated by indigestible lumps of socialism called corporations

  Kevin Carson

  Socialism, Coordination, Trade

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