Corporate Greed Quotes
In 1961 the President intervened in a labor dispute in the steel industry with the "understanding" that the steel companies would not raise their prices after the settlement. As soon as there was a settlement prices were raised:. The President "persuaded" the steel executives to rescind the increases.
Ford was then 74 years old and had become a very different man than in his youth when he was the hero of labor. He was very paranoid at this time. He even thought that financiers were actually backing the labor unions because their purpose was to go to war against Hitler who Ford greatly admired and supported. See {642379}. He claimed that the way they would do it is to fund the labor unions so most workers would join unions. This he thought would eliminate competition and lower workers’ wages. When workers’ wages were pushed low enough, the workers would demand American entry into the war to create government spending on armaments and a labor shortage to drive wages up again. There was not a single financier who was actually paying or lending any money to labor unions, and most industrialists other than Ford complained that labor unions would always demand higher wages. Ford’s son Edsel was the chief operating officer of Ford Motor Company, and did his best to work around his father to keep the company healthy and deal with a terrible labor relations problem his father caused.
She was referring to the high percentage of Rockefeller workers who were killed in industrial accidents with little or no management concern for workplace safety. In addition, she accused Rockefeller (and other very rich employers) of paying such low wages that full time workers lived in abject poverty and suffering the short lifespan that went with poverty then (and even today, but less so.)
By producing growth and an increasing standard of living and universal education, capitalism’s citizens have the time, education, and resources to protest and produce social unrest. However, that assumes that there is also a democratic state. For Schumpeter and many others, capitalism and democracy go hand in hand, but many point to historical examples of one developing faster than the other.
While not every person in the stock market was dishonest, a large number were, and the system itself was inherently unfair and disadvantaged the average investor. Despite the many reforms attempted over the years, as the 2008 meltdown proved, the same problem was still with us. Capone was essentially right then and even today.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. The nature of telephone technology made it easy for companies to obtain monopolies for different areas of the country. When there is a monopoly, there is a huge tendency for the controlling company to charge very high prices and have poor customer service as the usual competition required for quality performance under capitalism is nonexistant. So in 1890, there was the same resentment of the telephone companies, that existed over a century later when there was still a monopoly. Regulation helped somewhat, but the capabilities of the monopolist began to include lobbying and campaign contributions so that typically, in the 21st century, the local telephone companies had much control over the State Commissions that were supposed to regulate them. Long distance service, whose monopoly was broken up by the Federal Courts became a wonderful service for customers and the prices were a tiny fraction of what they had been under their old monopoly.
