Robert Reich Quotes

Maintaining the trust of the consumer is critical to our business. We live and breathe only one thing, which is wanting to connect consumers with great local businesses, and I don't feel we can do that if we don't have effective ways to prevent gaming of the system.

A company is not accountable just to its owners, but to its workers and its customers.

And also, more and more businesses really want to do the right thing. They feel better about themselves, their workers feel better, and so do their customers. I think this is equally true in the transnational corporations, but it is harder to express in those situations.

We have to ask ourselves, 'What kind of world is it where a baby-food executive substitutes artificial flavoring and sugar for apple juice? What kind of businesses have we created when we even lie to infants?'

We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.

Ultimately, the success of America's market economy depends on trust. This includes trust between buyers and sellers, between lenders and borrowers, and between investors and the companies in which they invest.

Consumers recognize, and don't like, corporate lying.

It's not a long-term business model to take advantage of your consumers in ways that are not sustainable.

It's hard to find good business partners and people who do good business the right way.

If consumers are strong, if consumers are protected, if they can trust the marketplace and feel confident that they're not being cheated here and there, then consumers can drive this economy forward.

In consumer protection, you can say it hurts business; that is, it makes them comply with the law, which is actually what we want them to do, but it helps consumers.

A profit is not without honor save in Boston.

Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. ... The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants.

We only want to link up with people whom we like, admire, and trust. ... We do not wish to join with managers who lack admirable qualities, no matter how attractive the prospects of their business. We've never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person.

If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out - either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.

While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes.

Regulation - which is based on force and fear - undermines the moral base of business dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of construction. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory.

I want to send a clear message to every board room, every executive suite across America, if you scam your customers, exploit your many employees, pollute our environment, or rip off taxpayers, we will find ways to hold you accountable.

The question is how do you do it [more consumer protection] so that it actually works that way? And that takes analysis, and sometimes collaboration between government and business, to understand how that works.

I think it is completely immoral for a shop to trade in the middle of a community, to take money and make profits from that community and then ignore the existence of that community, its needs and problems.

I don't know how to sell out. If I tried to sell out I don't think I could.

Business men are to be pitied who do not recognize the fact that the largest side of their secular business is benevolence. ... No man ever manages a legitimate business in this life without doing indirectly far more for other men than he is trying to do for himself.

As to the meaning of "corporate social responsibility," Friedman and I would agree: If a certain action improves the corporation's bottom line, there's no point in labeling it "socially responsible." It's just good business.

The sound rule in busi­ness is that you may give money freely when you have a sur­plus, but your name never-nei­ther as en­dorser nor as mem­ber of a cor­po­ra­tion with in­di­vid­ual li­a­bil­ity

Global commerce is driven by a single conviction: the inalienable right to earn profit, regardless of any human cost.