Michael Moore Quotes

Merchandise from Wal-Mart has become as ubiquitous as the water supply. Yet, still, the company is rebuked and reviled by anyone claiming a social conscience and is lambasted by legislators as if its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and the Taliban.

It is a paradox of the acquisitive society in which we now live that although private morals are regulated by law, the entrepreneur is allowed considerable freedom to use - and abuse - the public in order to make money.

Perhaps the single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader, who - thanks largely to the media - has become a legend in his own time and an idol of millions of Americans.

I think you can say a lot of evil behavior by companies is short-term optimization.

I don't want corporate America to think they can continue their duplicitous double-dealing.

All businessmen are scum.

It is not possible to assert publicly that Monsanto is anything other than venal without being accused of being a sellout, a fraud, or worse.

There are many who condemn my crew and I for taking the law into our own hands and for taking on the barons of corporate profit.

… the blindness and greed of the so-called captains of industry.

I grew up around the business quite a bit; I saw a little bit of the underbelly of it.

Corporate greed is killing America, and that's what we battling at Boeing.

Business people get many undeserved prizes - golden parachutes and bonuses even when companies fail. I don't think people should get rewarded for screwing up.

My concern is that we live in an economy in which stabbing someone and waiting for them to complain before we remove the knife has become the normal way of doing business. When did we lose sight of the fact that it's not nice to stab people in the first place?

I do believe that freedom isn't free - but today the corporate and political right wing is trying to cheapen this truly American value. They've been cynically using the word 'freedom' to rally the American public against its own best interests.

Getting back to the point, a guy like Jerry, he deals with the business, and he doesn't see it as being evil or ugly, it's what you have to do, and I mean I know there's some really ugly parts to it and parts which drive me nuts, but not in the same way as music business.

You know, I never fight for corporate America.

For my very first movie, 'Roger and Me,' I made it as part of my deal with Warner Brothers that the four people that were evicted in that film, that Warner Brothers would house - would pay their mortgage or their rent for the next two years to give them a chance to get on their feet.

Chief executives, who themselves own few shares of their companies, have no more feeling for the average stockholder than they do for baboons in Africa.

Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.

The question shouldn't be 'Are we guilty about our colonial past;' it should be 'Why aren't we more guilty about our corporate present'?

There's nothing wrong with the free-enterprise system. But it has to have some compassion.

You have to understand: the narrative that people have about business and capitalism is that they are fundamentally selfish, greedy, and exploitative. Of course, I don't agree with that narrative.

The collapse of Enron was devastating to tens of thousands of people and shook the public's confidence in corporate America.

Sure, food stamps are occasionally misused, but anyone familiar with business knows that the abuse of food subsidies is far greater in the corporate suite. Every time an executive wines and dines a hot date on the corporate dime, the average taxpayer helps foot the bill.

Ralph Nader is the single most effective antagonist of American business.