Business Oversight Quotes
During The Depression although business in general was doing very poorly, there were a few which had grown immensely powerful and abused the power as there was little or no regulation at the time.
This statement demonstrated the classic difference that Roosevelt had with the right wing of his party and that of the contemporary Republican party. Namely they thought that the only obligation of the corporation of other business was to the owners / shareholders while Roosevelt saw the obligation to the State and the people. The State and the society gives corporations many privileges that normal businesses do not have—most important is limited liability for the corporation’s negligence or even intentional damage to people. If the Corporation had no obligation to the State and to the people, why should they get this limited liability and other benefits?
To conservatives of the day the notion of an SEC or Interstate Commerce Commission or anti-Trust legislation or any kind of Federal interference with a private corporation was basic communism and unheard of. It is hard for us today to understand how radical an idea it was that the Federal Government should inspect food to make sure that it was safe or that a company might be restricted from putting all its competitors out of business with predatory pricing and then when there was no competition left charging outrageous prices and gouge the public. Even the notion of saying that a company could not lie about their products in order to sell them more effectively was radical.
