Corporate Power Quotes

The problem is that affirmative action could never really get at the issue of corporate power in the workplace, and so you ended up with the downsizing; you ended up with de-industrializing. You ended up with the marginalizing of working people and working poor people even while affirmative action was taking place, and a new black middle class was expanding. ~ Cornel West

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power ~ Benito Mussolini

Corporate power consolidation is so enormous that even the government could be viewed as a small appendage of a larger corporate organism. ~ Bryant McGill

Populists have always been out to challenge the orthodoxy of the corporate order and to empower workaday Americans so they can control their own economic and political destinies. This approach distinguishes the movement from classic liberalism, which seeks to live in harmony with concentrated corporate power by trying to regulate excesses. ~ Jim Hightower

I want to go further, because it was investment banks, it was insurance companies, it was mortgage companies, all of which contributed.So let's not just be narrowly focused on one part of the problem. We have a lot of issues with corporate power that have to be addressed. My plan takes us further and it would do the job. ~ Hillary Clinton

There is all of this protesting against corporate power, but in reality, corporations have to persuade you - they could have a ton of money, but actually only government can use force. ~ John Stossel

Everyone in the Chinese economic world knows that the country is not going to move out of cheap-workhouse status, toward the realm of 'real' rich-country corporate power and prosperity, unless (among other changes) it begins removing these price distortions. ~ James Fallows

The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. ~ Eric Schlosser

Whenever power is concentrated and unaccountable - whether it's corporate power, governmental power, or religious power - it inevitably leads to abuses. Human beings are imperfect, and you need a system of check and balances to keep them in line, to encourage good behavior. You need competing centers of power. ~ Eric Schlosser

Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important - it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not - but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone. ~ Nick Harkaway

Business of blurring is fantastic. They both are playing the politics of avoidance. They avoid all the issues on corporate power, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, so on and so forth. They avoid all those. That's the politics of avoidance. All the major issues that are so much on people's minds - health care, living wage, public works, jobs - they avoid. ~ Ralph Nader

We're in a very, very profound crisis. It's so obvious that no one in the power structure, either the corporate power structure or the political power structure, knows what to do or is willing to do what's necessary in relationship both to global war and global warming. It's so obvious that conditions are getting worse for the great majority of Americans. It's so obvious also that we face a very serious danger from people who feel, see themselves only as victims. And we have to somehow, in a very loving way, help the American people to recover the best that is in our traditions. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Food is a great metaphor for the consolidation of corporate power in the hands of very few, who are mostly interested in their own profits and not the wellbeing of the animals they're slaughtering, or the land and the water they're using or abusing, or the workforce they're exploiting or even the people eating it. ~ Robert Kenner

The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly. ~ Noam Chomsky

The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy. ~ Alex Carey

Corporations barely pay taxes. The corporate tax rate is already very low, but corporations have worked out an array of complicated techniques so they often don't have to pay taxes at all ... The scale of sheer robbery by corporate power is enormous. ~ Noam Chomsky

Occupy Wall Street means making Wall Street and the corporate power elite understand that the people affected by the binge of unregulated greed are not going away, and they are not going to give up. ~ Dana Spiotta

A genuine free enterprise system, without state-enforced artificial scarcities, artificial property rights or subsidies, would be like dynamite at the foundations of corporate power. ~ Kevin Carson

The processes of corporate power do not work in isolation. The economic and legal mechanisms that allow the privatization of the commonwealth, externalization of costs, predatory economic practices, political influence-buying, manipulation of regulation and deregulation, control of the media, propaganda and advertising in schools, and the use of police and military forces to protect the property of the wealthy-all of these work synergistically to weave a complex web of power.

Activists have dedicated lifetimes of necessary work to deal with the results of corporate power, by trying to mitigate the results of power: an ever-increasing disparity in wealth and power and continual economic, political, environmental, and human rights crises. For social justice campaigns to be strategic, it is also necessary to examine how privatization, externalization, monopoly, and other corporate power processes have been institutionalized. This institutionalization is exemplified in the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and in recent "free" trade agreements which have culminated in the creation of the World Trade Organization. An understanding of such institutions provides a necessary tool for achieving the long-term goals of environmental sustainability and social justice. ~ George Draffan

I don't know how it could be more stark or clear: this entire society is being dominated by corporate power in a way that may exceed what happened in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. ~ Russ Feingold

The clinical definition of "fascism" is when private concentrated economic power takes government away from the people, turns government into a guarantor, a subsidizer, a covering of corporate power. ~ Ralph Nader

John Cobb is saying that perhaps we are beginning to see that now as our greed goes completely out of control and everything is seen through money, through corporate power, etc., etc. We know it well. He asked the question, What will be the holocaust that takes us to the next era? - which he describes as "Earthism." ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Capitalism is a compulsively expansive system. A modern market economy dictates that an enterprise must grow or die, and nothing will prevent capitalism from industrializing - more accurately, expanding - endlessly over the entire face of the planet whenever it is prepared to do so. Only the complete reconstruction of society and the economy can end the dilemmas that globalization raises - the exploitation of workers and the enhancement of corporate power to the point of threatening the stability, indeed the very safety, of the planet. ~ Murray Bookchin

The media, itself an arm of mega-corporate power, feeds the fear industry, so that people are primed like pumps to support wars on rumor, innuendo, legends, and lies. ~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. ~ Noam Chomsky

The existence of the corporation, as we have it with us today, was never dreamed of by the fathers . . .The corporation of today has invaded every department of business, and it's powerful but invisible hand is felt in almost all activities of life . . . The effect of this change upon the American people is radical and rapid.

The individual is fast disappearing as a business factor and in his stead is this new device, the modern corporation . . . The influence of this change upon character cannot be overestimated. The businessman at one time gave his individuality, stamped his mental and moral characteristics upon the business he conducted . . .

Today the business once transacted by individuals in every community is in the control of corporations, and many of the men who once conducted an independent business are gathered into the organization, and all personal identity, and all individualities lost. ~ Robert Marion La Follette

Images have enormous power, and images freed from deep within ourselves can change us profoundly. ~ Alice McCall

The basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. ~ Frank Herbert

It was only natural that the intellectuals who questioned the necessity of American purpose did not rush from Cambridge and New Haven to inflict their doubts about American power and goals upon the nation's policies. So people like Riesman, classic intellectuals, stayed where they were while the new breed of thinkers-doers, half of academe, half of the nation's think tanks and of policy planning, would make the trip, not doubting for a moment the validity of their right to serve, the quality of their experience. They were men who reflected the post-Munich, post-McCarthy pragmatism of the age. One had to stop totalitarianism, and since the only thing the totalitarians understood was force, one had to be willing to use force. They justified each decision to use power by their own conviction that the Communists were worse, which justified our dirty tricks, our toughness. ~ David Halberstam

Never underestimate the power of intention. ~ Cheryl Richardson

Individuals who succeed have a belief in the power of commitment. If there's a single belief that seems almost inseparable from success, it's that there's no great success without commitment. If you look at successful people in any field, you'll find they're not necessarily the best and the brightest, the fastest and the strongest. You'll find they're the ones with the most commitment. ~ Tony Robbins

Writer's heaven is the place where you decide to rewrite your life the way you wish you had lived it. Because a writer's power, Marcus, is that he gets to decide the ending of the book. He has power over life and death; he has the power to change everything. Writers have more power in their fingertips than they imagine. All they have to do is close their eyes and they can change an entire lifetime. What might ~ Joel Dicker

Because there was a hunger in me to see everything and do everything. I wanted to be everyone I saw. I wasn't enough for me. Can you understand that? ~ Sidney Sheldon

We choose how we'll look at things. We retain the ability to inject perspective into a situation. We can't change the obstacles themselves - that part of the equation is set - but the power of perspective can change how the obstacles appear. ~ Ryan Holiday

The power of healing is within you. All you need to do is give your body what it needs and remove what is poisoning it. You can restore your own health by what you do -- not by the pills you take, but by how you choose to live. ~ Terry Wahls

What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth. ~ Boris Pasternak

Heroes are men who admit to being difficult to live with, who demand extremely high standards in every aspect of their lives, who are natural, effortless leaders, strong men, men with prestige and intelligence, whose faults are likely to be manifestations of strength and power. He is the master of his life; he is in control. Whether his sphere of influence is the boardroom or the mountains, the sea or the stage, the hero dominates it with his personality, his intelligence, and his quick, hard-honed grasp of every situation. A hero can seem arrogant and short-tempered, ruthless, tough, even cruel
he can be quite unlovable at first. ~ Robyn Donald

Enter into the plane of mental development. Start to increase your personal power level. Your life will become quite wonderful and very happy. You move beyond delusion. ~ Frederick Lenz

When we think of God, we are apt to think of Him in human form. In the Epiphanies of the Old Testament God revealed Himself to Joshua and others in human form. He puts Himself within the compass of our highest conception, in order that He may make Himself real to us in His love and sympathy and power. ~ A.C. Dixon

I experience God as the power of love. ~ John Shelby Spong

What really worries me is that those who are in positions of power are not really affected by what we are writing. In the moral dialogue you want to start, you really want to involve the leaders. People ask me: "Why were you so bold as to publish A Man of the People? How did you think the Government was going to take it? You didn't know there was going to be a coup?" I said rather flippantly that nobody was going to read it anyway, so I wasn't likely to be fired from my official position. It's a distressing thought that we cannot engage our leaders in the kind of moral debate we need. ~ Chinua Achebe

My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would sweep into our lives with holy disruption, upending our assumptions and privileges, our greed and selfishness, our pride and our stupor. To empower our work and our witness. Like Zechariah 4:6 tells us, not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. ~ Sarah Bessey

A true lady never lets someone know when he's riled her; otherwise she's giving away her power and her crown. ~ Carolyn Brown

Within the hierarchy of fabrications that compose our lives - families, countries, gods - the self incontestably ranks highest. Just below the self is the family, which has proven itself more durable than national or ethnic affiliations, with these in turn outranking god-figures for their staying power. So any progress toward the salvation of humankind will probably begin from the bottom - when our gods have been devalued to the status of refrigerator magnets or lawn ornaments. Following the death rattle of deities, it would appear that nations or ethnic communities are next in line for the boneyard. Only after fealty to countries, gods, and families has been shucked off can we even think about coming to grips with the least endangered of fabrications - the self. ~ Thomas Ligotti

Pilgrimages are journeys to places of power. People sometimes make pilgrimages to the caves where Milarepa or other great yogis meditated. ~ Frederick Lenz

Sorrow is God's plowshare that turns up and subsoils the depths of the soul, that it may yield richer harvests. If we had never fallen, or were in a glorified state, then the strong torrents of Divine joy would be the normal force to open up all our souls' capacities; but in a fallen world, sorrow, with despair taken out of it, is the chosen power to reveal ourselves to ourselves. Hence it is sorrow that makes us think deeply, long, and soberly. ~ Lettie Cowman

In terms of identity? I'm a commercial fantasy writer, looking to entertain my audience with fantastical tales that mix history with myth and magic. That's something humans have been doing for a very long time, and I like being part of a long tradition of storytelling, whether that's ancient tales shared around a campfire or modern podcasts.
...
I'm currently editing a scene that involves winged lions and smoke-conjured armor, so I'm not certain I'm the best writer to ask about truth. But that being said, words and stories have great power and I think setting a scene that pulls from the real world but is set in a fictional one can cause readers to reassess and question things in a way they might not have otherwise. ~ S.A. Chakraborty

Women have gained access to the institutions, but not enough power to overhaul them. ~ Ellen Goodman

In my home, I listen to music; I play music: I play guitar and I play ukelele. And I swim and I ride a bike and I do all the things that everybody else does. ~ Charles Dance

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results. JAMES 5:16 ~ Francine Rivers

power is creation, and that when power takes the form of coercion and violence, that is actually a diminishment and distortion of what it was meant to be. ~ Andy Crouch

BlackBerry required tethering for some routine operations, and for many, the only way to integrate corporate mail was to keep a PC running all the time. ~ Steven Sinofsky

Those who know about education have no power; those who have the power know little or nothing about education. ~ Marion Brady

I deal in information," he says to the smarmy, toadying pseudojournalist who
"interviews" him. He's sitting in his office in Houston, looking slicker than
normal. "All television going out to Consumers throughout the world goes
through me. Most of the information transmitted to and from the CIC database
passes through my networks. The Metaverse -- -the entire Street -- exists by
virtue of a network that I own and control.
"But that means, if you'll just follow my reasoning for a bit, that when I have
a programmer working under me who is working with that information, he is
wielding enormous power. Information is going into his brain. And it's staying
there. It travels with him when he goes home at night. It gets all tangled up
into his dreams, for Christ's sake. He talks to his wife about it. And,
goddamn it, he doesn't have any right to that information. If I was running a
car factory, I wouldn't let workers drive the cars home or borrow tools. But
that's what I do at five o'clock each day, all over the world, when my hackers
go home from work.
"When they used to hang rustlers in the old days, the last thing they would do
is piss their pants. That was the ultimate sign, you see, that they had lost
control over their own bodies, that they were about to die. See, it's the first
function of any organization to control its own sphincters. We're not even
doing that. So we're working on ~ Neal Stephenson

Progress is just the word we use to disguise power doing its thing. ~ Namwali Serpell

On September 11, it was government that failed. Law enforcement agencies didn't detect the plot. The FBI had reports that said young men on the terrorist watch list were going from flight school to flight school, trying to find an instructor who would teach them how to fly a commercial jet. But the FBI never acted on it. The INS let the hijackers in. Three of them had expired visas. Months after the attack, the government issued visas to two dead hijackers.
The solution to such government incompetence is to give the government more power?
Congress could have done what Amsterdam, Belfast, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris, and Rome did: set tough standards and let private companies compete to meet them. Many of those cities switched to private companies because they realized government-run security wasn't working very well. Private-sector competition keeps the screeners alert because the airport can fire them. No one can fire the government; that's a reason government agencies gradually deteriorate. There's no competition. ~ John Stossel

The artist has the power to signoff the work by deconstructing the work itself: I've finished this work now and I'll sign it and relegate the painting to simply something that services my signature. The painting becomes the colorful backdrop of the signature. ~ Gavin Turk

People have a special power of sniffing other's problem, and relaying a distorted version of it to the world. ~ Novoneel Chakraborty

I don't want to sound too Oprah-ish or anything like that, but I really believe that if you have the power to imagine particular things, you have the ability to transform them. ~ Rabindranath Maharaj

Better, then, to go light on the sexual particulars, and think instead of who's winning and who's losing at any given point. How is power being exchanged here? I want to say, "Who's on top?" But that would of course be sleazy, and just generally beneath me ... ~ Michael Cunningham

In reality, government subsidized railroad construction, maintained high protective tariffs and a tight money supply, used its power to crush strikes, and in other ways supported the nation's most powerful economic interests. But the laissez-faire myth still framed political debate. The ~ Steven J. Diner

Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige
while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry? ~ Socrates

It is very important that your career raises your awareness. If your career is lowering your personal power, then it has got to change. ~ Frederick Lenz

Personality has power to uplift, power to depress, power to curse, and power to bless. ~ Paul Harris

It's the feeling that really creates the attraction, not just the picture or the thought. A lot of people think, "If I think the positive thoughts, or if I visualize having what I want, that will be enough." But if you're doing that and still not feeling abundant, or feeling loving or joyful, then it doesn't create the power of the attraction. ~ Jack Canfield

The song
Of Heaven is ever new; for daily thus,
And nightly, new discoveries are made
Of God's unbounded wisdom, power, and love,
Which give the understanding larger room,
And swell the hymn with ever-growing praise. ~ Robert Pollok

Excelsior! You will never again pray, never again repose in limitless trust - you deny it to yourself to remain halted before an ultimate wisdom, ultimate good, ultimate power, and there unharness your thoughts ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people. ~ Michael Gove

O]ne has to fight for justice for all. If I do not fight bigotry wherever it is, bigotry is thereby strengthened. And to the degree that it is strengthened, it will thereby have the power to turn on me."1 ~ Don Weise

She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. ~ H.B. Paull

It's a tangible thing; the kind of power that could tangle in my fingers. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Even the bravest cannot fight beyond his power ~ Homer

Don't believe the dark whisperings that invite you to walk backward. At any time in your life, you have the power to turn forward. ~ Anasazi Foundation