Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Quotes

I actually am a capitalist, and I believe in shareholders. But I believe in them as a result of what I do, not as a reason for what I'm doing. The same with profits - profits alone cannot be an objective. It has to have a purpose.

Companies that are publicly held have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to try to maximize their profits within ethical reasons.

Our laws demand that a corporation have a fiduciary responsibility with shareholders to maximize profits. They are legally required to make as much money as possible, any way possible within 'the law.'

Far too many executives have become more concerned with the 'four P's' - pay, perks, power and prestige - rather than making profits for shareholders.

The question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.

Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Business’s objective is to maximize profits—not maximize benefits to the American worker.

A corporation that is publicly traded, it has one goal: to make money. It doesn't have a soul. If it does have a soul, it comes from the people who run it.

The unhappy theory of business ethics is this: you have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. Period. To do anything other than that is to cheat your investors. And in a competitive world, you don't have much wiggle room here.

There is one and only one responsibility of business: to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.

I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders' value; the other is social responsibility.

We need to be clear when we venerate entrepreneurs what we are venerating. They are not moral leaders. If they were moral leaders, they wouldn't be great businessmen.

You have to decide who you are going to serve - stockholders or your customers.

He or she must be successful in economic terms, but always within an ethical framework. Whether his or her constituency is a corporation and its shareholders or the customers in a small and privately held business, his or her first responsibility is to serve that constituency.

I could have closed down bits of British Home Stores to make more money but it's not my style. I want to make my money as a retailer, not by putting people out of work.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it - their shareholders would revolt at anything less.

The history of business has shown that companies usually only regulate themselves if they're forced to by legislation, or out of self-interest - often in the shape of a marketable message that will help sell more products.

I pretty much believe, as everyone in the B Team does, that business must succeed beyond the bottom line. More important than profits is how you get to them. Measuring financial earnings and losses only is definitely not enough and has led us astray from creating a better world for all.

Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility... The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.

Do business managers have a commitment to anything more than the success of their company and to making money? It would be hard to say that they do. Indeed, many business leaders deny that there is any conflict between self-interest and the interests of all.

Is it possible to run a big industrial corporation in a benevolent fashion? We see these days that even the hippest companies hide some rotten practices to make their profit margins work.

Shareholders have the right and obligation to set the parameters of corporate behavior within which management pursues profit.

Excessive pandering to stockholders is as bad as any other form of pandering

Leaders must be reminded that Businesses exist for the service of men.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations.