William James Quotes
Our American philosophy bids us test every dogma by its results -- the dogma of competition no less than any other.
In the late 19th century, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed to control vicious monopolies and trusts. There were many who thought that this would be philosophically incompatible with the doctrine of free enterprise. James observed that the American philosophy required the testing of each doctrine and in the case of monopolies, the results were destructive for consumers, competitors, and society in general, with the monopolist the only beneficiary of the free enterprise where consumers and competitors lose their freedom.
William James, 1842-1910, Psychologist & Philosopher, Quoted in Leland Hazard, “Are Big Businessmen Crooks?”, The Atlantic Monthly, November 1961
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William James was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, and the "Father of American psychology".
