John Ruskin Quotes
There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.
Even today, the ethics of the business world are much looser than ethics of most other areas. He was considered one of the 7 Great Greek Sages, although he was not Greek by birth.
At the time, there was generally only a single newspaper in an area in New Zealand.
Draft language is sometimes attributed to Senator George F. Hoar.
It was common then for people to die in tenements as a result of shoddy construction, poisoning by sewer gas, and unsanitary conditions. As the result of the efforts of reformers like Riis and Theodore Roosevelt health inspectors were appointed and errant builders went to jail—in some cases for manslaughter.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. The nature of telephone technology made it easy for companies to obtain monopolies for different areas of the country. When there is a monopoly, there is a huge tendency for the controlling company to charge very high prices and have poor customer service as the usual competition required for quality performance under capitalism is nonexistant. So in 1890, there was the same resentment of the telephone companies, that existed over a century later when there was still a monopoly. Regulation helped somewhat, but the capabilities of the monopolist began to include lobbying and campaign contributions so that typically, in the 21st century, the local telephone companies had much control over the State Commissions that were supposed to regulate them. Long distance service, whose monopoly was broken up by the Federal Courts became a wonderful service for customers and the prices were a tiny fraction of what they had been under their old monopoly.
Most businesses attempt to gain monopolistic positions and avoid price and other competition as much as possible. See {633636} .
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, philosopher, prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
