Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes

Private enterprise is ceasing to be free enterprise. Private enterprise indeed became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise

Reckless capitalism kills black people.

Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power, it is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way.

The genius of capitalism consists precisely in its lack of morality …. Deprive a capitalist of his God-given right to lie and cheat and steal, and the poor sap stands a better than even chance of becoming one of the abominable wards of the state.

There is a growing distrust of the market and a feeling that Wall Street is a crooked casino where the house always wins. Yes, the game is rigged.

The presumed causes of Americas troubles can be summed up simply: the evils of unlimited competition, and abuses by those with economic power.

You're not supposed to go into business with the sole purpose of putting your neighbor out of business. This is not the United States of Corporate America.

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

Insider trading tells everybody at precisely the wrong time that everything is rigged, and only people who have a billion dollars and have access to and are best friends with people who are on boards of directors of major companies - they're the only ones who can make a true buck.

The economic game is not supposed to be rigged like some shady ring toss on a carnival midway.

Microsoft is engaging in unlawful predatory practices that go well beyond the scope of fair competition.

The trusts and combinations—the communism of self—whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserved, should not be forgotten or forgiven.

We oppose monopoly, the tendency of which is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

What we call Monopoly is Business at the end of its journey. The concentration of wealth, the wiping out of the middle classes, are other names for it. To get it is, in the world of affairs, the chief end of man.

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

[The beef trust is] an atrocious conspiracy of greed against need…. Can anyone deny that such absolute control by a few men over the food supply of the nation is in the highest degree hostile to the public welfare.

One can be in business and pursue bad profit. That is, by practicing cronyism—rigging the system to undermine competition, innovation and opportunity, making others worse off. Good profit should lead you to improve your ability to help others improve their lives. But that’s not how many businesses act today.

In Europe, we would congratulate anyone who is successful. But congratulations stop if we find that you start to misuse a dominant position.

When money, rather than innovation or value, is your competitive advantage, that's when things get boring and stagnant, and monopolies take root.

There are always giants out there trying to strangle the innovator and steal his innovation.

Monopolies, whether private or governmental, are always abused by those who hold them.

The most frequent request we get at the FCC is from companies who say, “Please regulate my rival.” The Commission can become a new tool for competitive strategy.

Restrict the right of the rich to buy up any anything and everything, and then to exercise a kind of monopoly.

Competition—ruthless, unforgiving, to-the-death competition—is a crucial feature of capitalism.

… the rules of big business … have superseded the teachings of our parents and are reducible to a simple maxim: Get a monopoly; let Society work for you: and remember that the best of all business is politics, for a legislative grant, franchise, subsidy or tax exemption is worth more than a Kimberly or Comstock lode, since it does not require any labor, either mental or physical, for its exploitation”