Eric Schlosser Quotes

American business needs a lifting purpose greater than the struggle of materialism.

I feel terrible about corporate greed. Growing up in a household that was a little more humble and didn't put so much emphasis on money and material goods, I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders.

Capitalism and market forces are very powerful in producing wealth and innovation. But we need to ensure that these forces act in the common interest.

Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa - and it's about getting a balance.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

Understanding capitalism is in some ways simple. At its best, capitalism rewards creators, makers and providers: the people and firms that create valuable things for others, like imaginative technologies and good food, cars and drugs.

Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance.

I learned to see myself and my role as a capitalist... as somebody who's trying to harness, for myself and for society, the power of greed and the power of the will to acquire into something that makes the world a better place. That's the version of capitalism that we want.

How different would this country be if few were engaged in making money and many in making things.

Capitalism is a wonderful economic engine, but it assigns little value to long-term projects or societal problems.

Wealth is only ever actually created from the bottom-up, with free people employing their distinctly human creativity and finding ways to serve and employ others.

Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy.

This present system by which industry is motivated exclusively by the quest for maximal profits - though it may have helped a great deal to develop, to industrialize our country so rapidly and so successfully - now it's clearly passed its usefulness. It is keeping us from achieving the ideal society that we should have. We say industry must produce to improve the quality of life for all our people.

It's not in the draftsmanship, it's in the man. Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It's in the man. If you want to do it, you do it.

I did not realize that when money becomes a core value, then education drives towards utility or that the life of the mind will not be counted as good unless it produces measurable results. That public services will no longer be important. That an alternative life to getting and spending will become very difficult as cheap housing disappears. That when communities are destroyed only misery and intolerance are left.

In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.

Giving is the vital impulse and moral center of capitalism.

America, as everybody knows, is a country of many contradictions, and a big contradiction for a long time has been between a very aggressive form of capitalism and consumerism against what might be called a kind of moral or civic impulse.

America... an economic system prouder of the distribution of its products than of the products themselves.

A Society in which the people's wants do not exceed their possessions is not a Socialist society.

Tool - something with a use on one end and a grasp on the other end.

Business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.

Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity-thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.

Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet would cost about $20 billion. Let's just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season.

In a world where profit is consistently put before both people and the planet, climate economics has everything to do with ethics and morality.