Ethical Capitalism Quotes

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.

Making money and making the world a better place are not contrary to one another.

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.

This present system by which industry is motivated exclusively by the quest for maximal profits - though it may have helped a great deal to develop, to industrialize our country so rapidly and so successfully - now it's clearly passed its usefulness. It is keeping us from achieving the ideal society that we should have. We say industry must produce to improve the quality of life for all our people.

Early Charlie Munger is a horrible career model for the young, because not enough was delivered to civilization in return for what was wrested from capitalism. And other similar career models are even worse.

We mean to make little business big, and all business honest, instead of striving to make Big Business little, and yet letting it remain dishonest.

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 think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.

The profit orientation is only one orientation of a person. The same people who are interested in profit-making are also selfless. I am not saying that capitalist theory is wrong. I am saying that it has not been interpreted and practiced fully.

As long as you have a system that is based on the rational that if you are making money you are thereby making a contribution to society, these financial rogue practices will continue.

Business is the most powerful force in society. It has the highest potential for solving social problems. Once consumers saw examples of prosperous companies integrating social concerns into their business practices, they were emboldened to demand the same of other businesses. Businesses could no longer say it was impossible.

There is no blindness more insidious, more fatal that this race for profit.

I see no conflict whatsoever between Christianity and good business practices. People say you can't mix business with religion. I say there's no other way.

We need a leader who understands the moral case for free enterprise.

Puritanism carried the ethos of the rational organization of capital and labor. It took over from the Jewish ethic only what was adapted to this purpose.

In a world where profit is consistently put before both people and the planet, climate economics has everything to do with ethics and morality.

Business is correct to defend its right to act in order to produce a vigorous and engaging prosperity. But it is wrong if it forgets that this freedom can only be experienced within the discipline of social responsibility.

Economic dynamism can be combined with environmental and social responsibility. High financial returns can go hand in hand with respect for human rights, and the preservation of the planet's natural resources

Profit has to be a means to other ends rather than an end in itself.

The success of the Starbucks has been based on this balance between profitability and a social conscience. Everywhere we're doing business, were trying to manage the business through the lens of humanity.

Capitalism and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are destroying the planet...Climate change has placed all humankind before a great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.

We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people. Interesting that we don't have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money NOT helping other people.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future.

Market forces have no intrinsically moral direction, which is why, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ethics should precede economics. But it doesn't have to. . . . We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products - from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of ever-greater profits.

We don't see profit as a blind instrument.