Economic Concentration Quotes

More striking still, it appeared that, if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.

Oppressive and intolerable as was the regime of the great consolidations of capital, even its victims, while they cursed it, were forced to admit the prodigious increase of efficiency which had been imparted to the national industries, the vast economies effected by concentration of management and unity of organization

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

The tendency of the legislation of this country is to build up monopolies, ... to concentrate power in the hands of the few.

The dangers of unexamined and unregulated monopoly power, particularly in the state executive, are hardly news. The right reaction is not passive acquiescence.

As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.

Who can object to a monopoly when any new company, if it is built around a scientific nucleus, can create a new monopoly of its own by creating a wholly new field?

The financial capital is being concentrated by corporations, institutional investors, and even our pension funds, and being reinvested in companies that repeat this process because it provides the highest return on that financial capital.

[Louis] Brandeis, like [Tomas] Jefferson, is an equal opportunity critic of bigness. And he, like Jefferson, sees American history as this incredible clash between small producers, farmers, and small business people on the one hand, and wicked oligarchs and financiers and monopolists on the other.

The fight against capitalism has many aspects, particularly the distinctive economic models that concentrate the capital in few hands.

No. It is not acceptable that the 6 largest financial institutions in this country have assets of almost 10 trillion dollars, and issue half of the mortgages and two-thirds of the credit cards. That is too much wealth and power in the hands of a few. If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today he'd tell us to 'break them up.' And he'd be right. These huge banks must be broken up.

The second reason why we haven't observed the growing gap is that our historical and social science analyses have concentrated on what has been happening within the 'middle classes' - that is, to that ten to fifteen percent of the population of the world-economy who consumed more surplus than they themselves produced. Within this sector there really has been a relatively dramatic flattening of the curve between the very top (less than one percent of the total population) and the truly 'middle' segments, or cadres (the rest of the ten to fifteen percent).

One of the major forces driving the decline in wages and the concentration of wealth at the top is the offshoring of American jobs overseas - reducing wages not only in manufacturing but also across the economy.

I think the answer has to do with the fact that [Louis D.] Brandeis was a consistent critic of bigness in business and in government.

One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations. Enormous spiritual sacrifices are made in the transformation of shopkeepers into employees... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation in much the same manner as he has been submerged in the state in other lands.

The economy - once a great scatter of small productive units in autonomous balance, has become dominated by two or three hundred giant corporations, administratively and politically interrelated... The political order, once a decentralized set of several dozen states with a weak spinal cord, has become a centralized executive establishment which has taken up into itself many powers previously scattered... The military order, once a slim establishment in a context of distrust fed by state militia, has become the largest and most expensive feature of government.

The State certainly played a decisive role. I also believe that it may have stemmed from the rivalry itself. Grow or die, devour or die. That's the one problem that I have to wrestle with. I have to wrestle with whether or not rivalry in the free market does not ultimately lead to concentration, corporatism, and finally totalitarianism.

In India, the concentration of wealth is in a few hands.

The opposing tendencies of concentration and spread are of little consequence in the liberal model of political economy.

The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in a few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless.

The top 10 per cent of the US population appropriated 91 per cent of income growth between 1989 and 2006, while the top 1 per cent took 59 per cent.

While control is needed, and perfectly warranted, our bias should be clear up front: Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection.

My concern over private property is that it no longer fosters individuality. The historic destiny of private property is that it has created a highly corporatized economy, and I have to ask myself why. What is it in the market that led 100 capitalists to dissolve into 10 as a result of rivalry and accumulation, 10 into 3, and I think if the system has its way, those 3 into 1?

When you have three out of the four largest banks in America today, bigger than they were - significantly bigger than when we bailed them out because they were too big to fail, I think if Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, a good Republican by the way, what he would say is: Break them up; they are too powerful economically; they are too powerful politically.

To put a halt to what it considered to be a rising tide of concentration in American business, Congress, with full power to do so, decided to clamp down with vigor on mergers … on the premise that mergers do tend to accelerate concentration in an industry. Many believe that this assumption of Congress is wrong, and that the disappearance of small businesses with a correlative concentration of business in the hands of a few is bound to occur whether mergers are prohibited or not. But it is not for the courts to review the policy decision of Congress…