quotations about corporations
This massive ascendancy of corporate power over democratic process is probably the most ominous development since the end of World War II, and for the most part "the free world" seems to be regarding it as merely normal.
WENDELL BERRY
Bringing it to the Table
The human race sleepwalked to oblivion, thinking only of the corporate logos on it's shroud.
J. G. BALLARD
Kingdom Come
If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits.
CHARLES STROSS
Rule 34
There was a time when corporations played a minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
WOODROW WILSON
"The Old Order Changeth,", The New Freedom
There are bad people and there are bad corporations. Just as there are good people and good corporations. That might seem too black and white, but what can I tell ya?
JAMES MURDOCH
interview, The Guardian, June 6, 2009
The corporation's boiling over
Everybody's taking over
WALL OF VOODOO
"Crack the Bell"
Liberals support the idea that individuals are more important than corporations, that as long as there are welfare programs for corporations there should be welfare programs for individuals.
JON CARROLL
attributed, The Best Liberal Quotes Ever
Corporations are social organizations, the theater in which men and women realize or fail to realize purposeful and productive lives.
LESTER BANGS
attributed, The Big Book of Business Quotations
The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time.
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
Antarctica
The United States ... celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
CHRIS HEDGES
"Why The United States Is Destroying Education", truthdig, April 10, 2011
Somebody's paying the corporations that destroyed Iraq and the corporations that are rebuilding it. They're getting paid by the American taxpayer in both cases. So we pay them to destroy the country, and then we pay them to rebuild it.
NOAM CHOMSKY
interview with David Barsamian, Alternative Radio, September 11, 2003
But you can't put a corporation in jail; you just take their money, and it's not really their money anyway.
BETH MACY
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
Corporations are very often useful bodies of men; but they more frequently outlive their usefulness and become corpori mortui to all intents and purposes.
DAVID JENNINGS
attributed, Day's Collacon
And then a great nation
Put into operation an evolutionary plan
Now mighty corporations and politicians rule the land
Wish I could remember when
We were more innocent
THE KINKS
"Now and Then"
If you abandon the political arena, somebody is going to be there. Corporations aren't going to go home and join the PTA. They are going to run things.
NOAM CHOMSKY
How the World Works
A corporation does seem like a family ... a hotbed of passion, rivalry, and dreams that build or destroy careers.
PAULA BERNSTEIN
Family Ties
Corporation: a miniature totalitarian state governed by a hierarchy of unelected officials who take a dim view of individualism, free speech, equality and eggheads. The backbone of all Western democracies.
RICK BAYAN
The Cynic's Dictionary
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Progressive Principles
In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations.
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
The Bed of Procrustes
Can we design a different corporation, an entity that engages in economic activity with more responsibility and ethical conduct? Can we conceive of corporations as holding public duties rather than constitutional rights? Or are we destined to become a corporate nation of underpaid hucksters in clown suits, trying to juice corporate profit and executive compensation by pushing school kids around?
JEFFREY D. CLEMENTS
Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It