Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Robber Barons

When business leaders ask me what they can do for Indiana, I always reply: 'Make money. Go make money. That's the first act of corporate citizenship. If you do that, you'll have to hire someone else, and you'll have enough profit to help one of those non-profits we're so proud of.'

Out of this modern civilization, economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

Leaders: Captains of industry.

I'm not against the corporations. They are our wealth. But they are getting too greedy. I don't want to do away with corporations. I want them to make our cars, however, not our laws.

It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.

Why was it, if you were a wealthy European industrialist in the 19th century, you would also most likely be a Protestant. There had been a shift of economic power from Catholic Countries like Italy and Spain towards Protestant countries like England and Germany? It seemed as if there were some kind of connection between the content of your faith—the form of your worship and your economic fortunes… What was it about Protestantism that made people not only work harder but save and accumulate capital?

The great affair, we always find, is to get money.

China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.

Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.

I’ve seen the lions of industry become lambs when they come into the Oval Office

The industrial revolution was accomplished by a group of financial titans, whose methods were not scrutinized with too much care, and who were honored in proportion as they produced the results, irrespective of the means they used.

The merchant created the industrialist.

Open the book of universal history at what period we may, it is always the India trade which is the cause of internal industry and foreign negotiation.

I don’t think that Bill Gates, in his garage, was calculating his marginal tax rate.

England's battles, it used to be said, were won on the playing fields of Eaton.... America’s battles can be won on the assembly lines of Detroit.

I believe in corporations. I believe in trade unions. Both have come to stay and are necessities in our present industrial system, But where, either one or the other, there develops corruption or mere brutal indifference to the rights of others … then the offender, whether union or corporation, must be fought.

The appropriate role of government is to provide the framework that allows capital to flow freely, in accord with the law of supply and demand. That is how jobs, businesses and wealth are created. The government would have no money to distribute or spend without the tax revenue generated from the jobs and businesses that are the fruit of our capitalist system.

The Trump family's business model is part of a broader shift in corporate structure that has taken place within many brand-based multinationals, one with transformative impacts on culture and the job market, trends that I wrote about in my first book, 'No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies'.

We, as entrepreneurs, can be held responsible for our actions every single day, not every election cycle.

I think I'm a critic of corporate power, whether locally or globally. And the term 'globalization' I've never found all that helpful.

China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I liken myself to the robber barons.

While a fundamental responsibility of business leaders is to create value for shareholders, I think businesses also exist to deliver value to society.

Left-wing shareholder activists seek to leverage the mass economic power of institutional investors such as pension funds, whose managers are supposed to focus strictly on their fiduciary responsibilities to retirees.