Corporate Authority Quotes

Corporation: a miniature totalitarian state governed by a hierarchy of unelected officials who take a dim view of individualism, free speech, equality and eggheads. The backbone of all Western democracies.

This great oracle of the East India Company himself admits that, if there is no power vested in the Court of Directors but that of the patronage, there is really no government vested in them at all.

Unless the power of the corporation can be organized on an accepted principle of legitimacy, it will be taken over by a Central government

Business is in itself a power.

Being general manager is like being the de facto owner. It's like wearing the crown of 'Restaurant Man' without being 'Restaurant Man.' You're trying to run the business, but you're running the ranch without riding the big horse.

Corporations are the new dictators.

...it is a government by the corporations, for the corporations.

I think we're in an era of unprecedented dominance by corporations. I think people understand that deeply; I don't think that's even questioned.

In the international world, when General Electric walks into the room, the Sixth Fleet walks in behind them.

Corporations now govern society, perhaps more than governments themselves do; yet ironically, it is their very power, much of which they have gained through economic globalization, that makes them vulnerable.

They execute the powers in their charter otherwise than as directed, and exceed them …. They continue to exact an oath of fidelity to themselves, notwithstanding the King's orders to the contrary, and make such oath essential to the tenure of office and even freedom of the Company.

It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.

We derive our authority from God and the West India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects.

The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.

There was a time when corporations played a minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.