Noam Chomsky Quotes

I think we've got to look at corporate law. Back in the day when I studied it, there were different constituencies that were to be served, and I think there was a real wrong turn about 20 to 25 years ago when the theory began to be promoted that your highest duty - in fact, some would argue, your only duty - is to maximize shareholder return. I just don't buy it. And it wasn't the original underpinnings of the legal theory of corporate law.

I believe our philosophy of conscious capitalism will eventually be widely adopted primarily because it is a better way to do business, and it creates more total value in the world for all of its stakeholders.

If you work for and eventually lead a company, understand that companies have multiple stakeholders including employees, customers, business partners and the communities within which they operate.

Companies, to date, have often used the excuse that they are only beholden to their shareholders, but we need shareholders to think of themselves as stakeholders in the well being of society as well.

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.

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

There's a myth out there that you have to genuflect at the altar of quarterly earnings. But it's a false choice that you can either be a good fiduciary or promote values such as environmental sustainability.

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.'

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.

I would rather be responsible and accountable and help to reward the public shareholders going ahead.

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 are questions as to whether it should even exist. Who should corporations be responsive to, the management of a corporation? Theoretically they are responsive to the shareholders, but I why not to the so - called stakeholders, the work force and the community? Nothing in economic theory opposes that. Those are social and political decisions.

When Wal-Mart brings water down to the Katrina victims, it's not doing that to be nice; it's doing it to make larger profits and to increase the value of its shares. If its actions are not accomplishing those objectives, the shareholders can sue the executives, and sue them successfully, because it is illegal for them to act on behalf of any other reason than increasing the value of their shares. There is nothing wrong with that. That is the way that they were created and the way we want them to function to increase prosperity in the market.

Globalization means that business strategy and business ethics cannot be separated from each other.

I will always do what's best for the company.

Most of the people I came across in the finance and business world were honest people, doing the best for their staff and for their family. But I encountered many who weren't.

For millennials, conducting business with a purpose that goes beyond making profits is critically important in determining the kind of company they want to work for - and the kind of company with whom they are willing to do business.

All business must have a social license to operate.

Business must go on reiterating its absolute commitment to embedding human rights in all it does, driving industry change through collaboration with governments, international organizations, and each other.

Lawmakers must stand up for companies that choose public safety over profit margins.

When you start to get shareholders, clients, employees, rating agencies, and everybody converging, and then your competitors bad-mouth you, you know you did the right thing.

We continue to hope that a way can be found for Benchmark to move forward, having profited so handsomely from the work of Travis Kalanick and many others, and to do so without inflicting gratuitous harm on the company which we have all supported, and for which we continue to have the greatest expectations.

As the head of the public company, you can't say you can't sell, because then you're telling your shareholders that your own personal feelings about your assets are more important than their money. And they won't invest with you if you do that.

I think the presumption is, for some reason, anybody who comes from the business or the corporate world is corrupt.