BIG BUSINESS / POWER & CORRUPTION
Thomas Nast cartoon
When you say fiscal responsibility, it seems to me that you really mean rich people keeping their money.—Alice Adams
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.—Aesop
At critical times the authorities always claim they have no authority.—Anonymous
Every year, the compensation representatives at the various plants were instructed to compute and estimate the Workmen's Compensation costs for the plant for the coming year and we had to turn those estimates in to the accountants for the corporation. The safety personnel at the plant did the same. They computed their costs...then it was just a question of the corporation deciding which was cheaper, to take some injuries, take some deaths, pay some Workmen's Compensation or spend a lot of money and make it safe.—Daniel M. Berman
Without unions, workers will lose many of the protections against abusive employers. Wages for all will be depressed, even as corporate profits soar. The American Dream will be destroyed for millions. And we will have a government of the corporations, by the already powerful, for the wealthy. —Kenneth Bernstein, teacher and blogger, in a 2011 CNN.com opinion piece on the Wisconsin measure to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights
When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it in practice.—Bismarck
Wherever you are, there are people who are greedy and will take advantage of their workers.—Jim Blau, SEIU
Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. —Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928
You may be sure that in this "new international system," the American citizen will count for precious little.—Pat Buchanan
At the moment, we have leaders in this country who care more about the short-term profits of big corporations than they do about the long-term well being of the average working man and woman.—R.T. Buffenbarger, IAM, September 20, 2004
Management doesn't seem to understand the importance of the human factor.-- Charles, Prince of Wales
When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.— Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm
It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.—Noam Chomsky
If you ever saw a cat and a dog eating out of the same plate, you can bet your ass it was the cat’s food.— Congressman William Clay
If you object to unfair treatment, you're an ingrate. If you seek equity and fair consideration, you're uppity. If you demand union security, you're un-American. If you rebel against repressive management tactics, they will lynch and scalp you. But if you are passive and patient, they will take advantage of both.— Congressman William Clay, Sr., speaking to the AFL-CIO Federation of Government Employees, 1975
I have no intention of representing those powerful interests who walk over powerless people.— Congressman William Clay, Sr.
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.—Aesop
At critical times the authorities always claim they have no authority.—Anonymous
Every year, the compensation representatives at the various plants were instructed to compute and estimate the Workmen's Compensation costs for the plant for the coming year and we had to turn those estimates in to the accountants for the corporation. The safety personnel at the plant did the same. They computed their costs...then it was just a question of the corporation deciding which was cheaper, to take some injuries, take some deaths, pay some Workmen's Compensation or spend a lot of money and make it safe.—Daniel M. Berman
Without unions, workers will lose many of the protections against abusive employers. Wages for all will be depressed, even as corporate profits soar. The American Dream will be destroyed for millions. And we will have a government of the corporations, by the already powerful, for the wealthy. —Kenneth Bernstein, teacher and blogger, in a 2011 CNN.com opinion piece on the Wisconsin measure to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights
When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it in practice.—Bismarck
Wherever you are, there are people who are greedy and will take advantage of their workers.—Jim Blau, SEIU
Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. —Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928
You may be sure that in this "new international system," the American citizen will count for precious little.—Pat Buchanan
At the moment, we have leaders in this country who care more about the short-term profits of big corporations than they do about the long-term well being of the average working man and woman.—R.T. Buffenbarger, IAM, September 20, 2004
Management doesn't seem to understand the importance of the human factor.-- Charles, Prince of Wales
When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.— Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm
It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.—Noam Chomsky
If you ever saw a cat and a dog eating out of the same plate, you can bet your ass it was the cat’s food.— Congressman William Clay
If you object to unfair treatment, you're an ingrate. If you seek equity and fair consideration, you're uppity. If you demand union security, you're un-American. If you rebel against repressive management tactics, they will lynch and scalp you. But if you are passive and patient, they will take advantage of both.— Congressman William Clay, Sr., speaking to the AFL-CIO Federation of Government Employees, 1975
I have no intention of representing those powerful interests who walk over powerless people.— Congressman William Clay, Sr.
...
I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.—Frank More Colby
Plato told Aristotle no one should make more than five times the pay of the lowest member of society. J.P. Morgan said 20 times. Jesus advocated a negative differential - that's why they killed him.—Graef Crystal (1998)
Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence.— Leonardo da Vinci
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.— Denis Diderot
Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.—Frederick Douglass
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.—Frederick Douglass
Business knows no pity, and cares for justice only when justice is seen to be better policy. If it had power to control the elements, it would grasp in its iron clutches the waters, sunshine and air and resell them by measure, and at exorbitant prices to the millions of famished men, women and children.—W.A. Duncan, in the Cherokee Advocate, 1892
To the fervent proponents of ruthless corporate capitalism I say: make a millionaire CEO live as a poor sweatshop worker in Indonesia for one month and then ask him about the merits of the world economic system.—Vassilis Epaminondou
It is said that our ideas are impractical. That is true. From the standpoint of old institutions, interests and their beneficiaries; the new is always impractical. We also hear it said that our efforts are dangerous. Yes, gentle reader, our ideas, our principles and object are certainly dangerous and menacing, applied by a united working class would shake society and certainly those who are now on top sumptuously feeding upon the good things they have not produced would feel the shock.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer ("Industrial Unionism: The Road To Freedom")
[R]ight and wrong are relative terms--and it all resolves into a question of Power.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer ("Industrial Unionism: The Road To Freedom")
Our country has been ravaged and stolen by industrial pirates and yet, learned judges have decreed that it was "legal".... whatever the king has done, the courtiers have most humbly considered right and the guards and men-at-arms been ready to see that the slaves did not rebel against it all.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer ("Industrial Unionism: The Road To Freedom")
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.—Benjamin Franklin
The topdog may win the game of force. But not the moral issue - and when that dawns upon him and his allies, change of consciousness sets in, and demoralization starts thawing the frozen heart. The game is over.—Dr. Johan Galtung
There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs, but not for everyone's greed.—Mahatma Gandhi
No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money.—Samuel Gompers, on child labor
Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.—Rebecca Gordon
The workers of this country do not worry me. I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.-- Jay Gould, robber baron
Really what we would like to see is to take these unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles.—Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan Executive Director of billionaire Koch Brothers front group Americans For Prosperity, February 2011, shortly before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ginned up a fiscal "crisis" to do just that.
The ongoing fight for justice does not end on an American factory floor. It extends to many regions of the world. We are all exploited by these global companies, by globalization.—Ed Havaich, GE worker and Union member
When Reagan and Bush were running in 1980, they said, "We're going to get American industry moving again." And they did--to Taiwan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia--everywhere except here.—Jim Hightower, columnist and commentator
Better to have government owned banks than a bank owned government.--comment on The Huffington Post
If the vote could do you any good, they would make it illegal!—Industrial Unionist slogan
There is a joke circulating that goes like this:
A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party and a Big Corp CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the tea partier and says, "Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."--Dave Johnson, economic/industrial writer and Fellow at Campaign For America’s Future, as well as a former CEO ("America Waking Up To The Value Of Unions")
I know that there are no limits to which the powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.—Mother Jones
We have words for racism and sexism, but wealth discrimination isn't fully recognized. It is a bias in favor of the wealthy and against labor, the environment, and the community. Concern for the public good must become the animating force of our economic order. —Marjorie Kelly, journalist and corporate reformer
We must design a corporate system in which all economic rights are equally protected, not only the rights of shareholders.—Marjorie Kelly, journalist and corporate reformer
Corporate power lies behind nearly every major problem we face--from stagnant wages and unaffordable health care to overconsumption and global warming.... With all this happening, why do we not read more about the pervasiveness of corporate power? In large part because even the "Fourth Estate," our media establishment, is majority owned by a handful of mega-corporations.—Marjorie Kelly, journalist and corporate reformer (from "How Popular Movements Can Confront Corporate Power And Win")
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.—John Maynard Keynes
One needs but to study the directory of directories of the great business concerns of the country to determine the extent to which this combination of combinations [i.e. corporate mergers] has been successfully accomplished, thus carrying us over into the fourth period of our industrial and commercial life--the period of complete industrial and commercial servitude in which we now unhappily find ourselves. And this supreme control of the business of the country is the triumph of men who have at every step defied public opinion, the common law and criminal statutes.—Robert M. LaFollette, Sr.
No free people in history very long maintained their political freedom after having once surrendered their industrial and commercial freedom.—Robert M. LaFollette, Sr.
You can not endow even the best machine with initiative.-- Walter Lippmann
Your silence will not protect you.-- Audre Lorde
Never descend to the ways of those above you.-- George Mallaby
Plato told Aristotle no one should make more than five times the pay of the lowest member of society. J.P. Morgan said 20 times. Jesus advocated a negative differential - that's why they killed him.—Graef Crystal (1998)
Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence.— Leonardo da Vinci
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.— Denis Diderot
Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.—Frederick Douglass
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.—Frederick Douglass
Business knows no pity, and cares for justice only when justice is seen to be better policy. If it had power to control the elements, it would grasp in its iron clutches the waters, sunshine and air and resell them by measure, and at exorbitant prices to the millions of famished men, women and children.—W.A. Duncan, in the Cherokee Advocate, 1892
To the fervent proponents of ruthless corporate capitalism I say: make a millionaire CEO live as a poor sweatshop worker in Indonesia for one month and then ask him about the merits of the world economic system.—Vassilis Epaminondou
It is said that our ideas are impractical. That is true. From the standpoint of old institutions, interests and their beneficiaries; the new is always impractical. We also hear it said that our efforts are dangerous. Yes, gentle reader, our ideas, our principles and object are certainly dangerous and menacing, applied by a united working class would shake society and certainly those who are now on top sumptuously feeding upon the good things they have not produced would feel the shock.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer ("Industrial Unionism: The Road To Freedom")
[R]ight and wrong are relative terms--and it all resolves into a question of Power.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer ("Industrial Unionism: The Road To Freedom")
Our country has been ravaged and stolen by industrial pirates and yet, learned judges have decreed that it was "legal".... whatever the king has done, the courtiers have most humbly considered right and the guards and men-at-arms been ready to see that the slaves did not rebel against it all.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer ("Industrial Unionism: The Road To Freedom")
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.—Benjamin Franklin
The topdog may win the game of force. But not the moral issue - and when that dawns upon him and his allies, change of consciousness sets in, and demoralization starts thawing the frozen heart. The game is over.—Dr. Johan Galtung
There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs, but not for everyone's greed.—Mahatma Gandhi
No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money.—Samuel Gompers, on child labor
Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.—Rebecca Gordon
The workers of this country do not worry me. I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.-- Jay Gould, robber baron
Really what we would like to see is to take these unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles.—Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan Executive Director of billionaire Koch Brothers front group Americans For Prosperity, February 2011, shortly before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ginned up a fiscal "crisis" to do just that.
The ongoing fight for justice does not end on an American factory floor. It extends to many regions of the world. We are all exploited by these global companies, by globalization.—Ed Havaich, GE worker and Union member
When Reagan and Bush were running in 1980, they said, "We're going to get American industry moving again." And they did--to Taiwan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia--everywhere except here.—Jim Hightower, columnist and commentator
Better to have government owned banks than a bank owned government.--comment on The Huffington Post
If the vote could do you any good, they would make it illegal!—Industrial Unionist slogan
There is a joke circulating that goes like this:
A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party and a Big Corp CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the tea partier and says, "Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."--Dave Johnson, economic/industrial writer and Fellow at Campaign For America’s Future, as well as a former CEO ("America Waking Up To The Value Of Unions")
I know that there are no limits to which the powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.—Mother Jones
We have words for racism and sexism, but wealth discrimination isn't fully recognized. It is a bias in favor of the wealthy and against labor, the environment, and the community. Concern for the public good must become the animating force of our economic order. —Marjorie Kelly, journalist and corporate reformer
We must design a corporate system in which all economic rights are equally protected, not only the rights of shareholders.—Marjorie Kelly, journalist and corporate reformer
Corporate power lies behind nearly every major problem we face--from stagnant wages and unaffordable health care to overconsumption and global warming.... With all this happening, why do we not read more about the pervasiveness of corporate power? In large part because even the "Fourth Estate," our media establishment, is majority owned by a handful of mega-corporations.—Marjorie Kelly, journalist and corporate reformer (from "How Popular Movements Can Confront Corporate Power And Win")
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.—John Maynard Keynes
One needs but to study the directory of directories of the great business concerns of the country to determine the extent to which this combination of combinations [i.e. corporate mergers] has been successfully accomplished, thus carrying us over into the fourth period of our industrial and commercial life--the period of complete industrial and commercial servitude in which we now unhappily find ourselves. And this supreme control of the business of the country is the triumph of men who have at every step defied public opinion, the common law and criminal statutes.—Robert M. LaFollette, Sr.
No free people in history very long maintained their political freedom after having once surrendered their industrial and commercial freedom.—Robert M. LaFollette, Sr.
You can not endow even the best machine with initiative.-- Walter Lippmann
Your silence will not protect you.-- Audre Lorde
Never descend to the ways of those above you.-- George Mallaby
We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty to spare and for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great , true principle -- the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of this start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars--and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat. -- Carson McCullers
...
This troubled planet is a place of the most violent
contrasts. Those that receive the rewards are totally separate from those who
shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.—Mr.
Spock of "Star Trek"
A Society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure and to another all the burdens of work condemns both classes to spiritual sterility.—Lewis Mumford
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.—George Orwell (Animal Farm)
Power is not a means; it is an end... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.—George Orwell (1984)
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.—George Orwell (1984)
Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.—Lucy Parsons
The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.— Wendell Phillips
Those that seek power are not worthy of that power.—Plato
The present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors... so that a very few and exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers.—Pope Leo XIII
Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress and touches even the ermine of the bench. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty.— National platform of the Populist Party, 1892
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.—William Proxmire
A Society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure and to another all the burdens of work condemns both classes to spiritual sterility.—Lewis Mumford
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.—George Orwell (Animal Farm)
Power is not a means; it is an end... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.—George Orwell (1984)
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.—George Orwell (1984)
Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.—Lucy Parsons
The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.— Wendell Phillips
Those that seek power are not worthy of that power.—Plato
The present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors... so that a very few and exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers.—Pope Leo XIII
Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress and touches even the ermine of the bench. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty.— National platform of the Populist Party, 1892
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.—William Proxmire
No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level --I mean the wages of decent living.—Franklin D. Roosevelt
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.—Mario Savio
America is being sold to the lowest bidders, and those whose jobs remain in this country are at the mercy of their employers.--Mary Shaw, writer and activist
If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessities of life.--Senator John Sherman, principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act
You never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick.— Sydney Smith
I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.—Edward Snowden, American whistleblower and patriot
I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement.—August Spies, testimony following the 1886 Haymarket Massacre
Once, a union job at GM or AT&T was a bridge to success. Now, a nonunion Wal-Mart job is a bridge to nowhere.—Andy Stern, SEIU President
When fewer workers have unions, the standard of living falls for everyone and the gap between the rich and poor grows.—John Sweeney, 2003
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.—Jonathan Swift
Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.--Elizabeth Warren (2012)
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody.--Elizabeth Warren
The freest government cannot long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and dependent.— Daniel Webster
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.—Mario Savio
America is being sold to the lowest bidders, and those whose jobs remain in this country are at the mercy of their employers.--Mary Shaw, writer and activist
If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessities of life.--Senator John Sherman, principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act
You never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick.— Sydney Smith
I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.—Edward Snowden, American whistleblower and patriot
I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement.—August Spies, testimony following the 1886 Haymarket Massacre
Once, a union job at GM or AT&T was a bridge to success. Now, a nonunion Wal-Mart job is a bridge to nowhere.—Andy Stern, SEIU President
When fewer workers have unions, the standard of living falls for everyone and the gap between the rich and poor grows.—John Sweeney, 2003
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.—Jonathan Swift
Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.--Elizabeth Warren (2012)
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody.--Elizabeth Warren
The freest government cannot long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and dependent.— Daniel Webster