Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesnt make a corporation a terrorist.
A company has a greater responsibility than making money for its stockholders. We have a responsibility to our employees to recognize their dignity as human beings.
I think maybe 50 years ago people and businesses felt like they had to choose between maximizing profits and making customers happy or making employees happy, and I think we're actually living in a special time where everyone's hyperconnected, whether through Twitter or blogs and so on. Information travels so quickly that it's actually possible to have it all, to make customers happy through customer service, to make employees happy through strong company cultures, and have that actually drive growth and profits.
The more moral the people are in their business dealings, the less paperwork you need, the more handshakes you can have, the more the wheels of capitalism work better because there's trust in the marketplace. Business ethics is not a joke. And, in fact, I think most businesses that I've dealt with encourage exactly that type of behavior.
Capitalism without Judaism, Christianity, or some other moral basis is just pure greed.
I feel terrible about corporate greed. Growing up in a household that was a little more humble and didn't put so much emphasis on money and material goods, I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders.
You can't make a good deal with a bad person.
I think it's a mistake for the American public to constantly be told that if you work for an oil company or you work for a bank, that automatically makes you bad. I think a lot of these people are very qualified people who are patriots. They're going to want to help the country.
Speeches by businessmen on social responsibility...may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked.... There is one and only one social responsibility of business-to...engage in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
If it's wrong to wreck the planet, it's wrong to profit from the wreckage.
I don't know how to sell out. If I tried to sell out I don't think I could.
All the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It's that simple.
Let’s put common decency ahead of corporate profits.
We believe there should be a huge area between everything you should do and everything you can do without getting into legal trouble. I don't think you should come anywhere near that line. We don't deserve much credit for this. It helps us make more money. I'd like to believe that we'd behave well even if it didn't work. But more often, we've made extra money from doing the right thing. Ben Franklin said I'm not moral because of it's the right thing to do - but because it's the best policy.
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.
This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.
I believe corporations that benefit from everything America has to offer should feel (ph) some sense of responsibility, not just to their biggest shareholders, but to their workers, to their customers, to their communities and, yes, to our country.
If you're cutting deals with one company or another, eventually, there's going to be a quid pro quo. There's going to be a bribe. There's going to be something.
Somewhere along the way, the idea, which I think was initially to get some fair transaction between people, went out the window. And what came in was, the most you can get and the least you can give. That's why cars are the way they are nowadays. It's just an erosion of all the things that were true and right about the original idea.
I don't think 'Profit' is devoid of morality. He's just on a different plane than the rest of us.
Capitalism has been interpreted as an exclusively profit-centric human engagement. Some have been saying to bring people and planet into the picture. This can be a good change, but it is still not fully operationalized. Are you putting people, planet and profit at the same level?
Look at the Quakers - they were excellent business people that never lied, never stole; they cared for their employees and the community which gave them the wealth. They never took more money out than they put back in.
Now, I will say, most American companies - most are run by honorable patriotic people who care about their employees and communities. But there are still too many powerful interests fighting to protect their own profits and privileges at the expense of everyone else.
We've always believed in fair trade.
What we are trying to do is to create a new business paradigm, simply showing that business can have a human face and a social conscience.
