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About this quote

What does it mean?
Free enterprise helps people only when it serves the public; when it chases profit alone, it lets the powerful dominate the weak.
In plain terms
Capitalism helps people only if it is not just for profit.
What can you take from it?
Profit-only business models can become tools of oppression.

Where it applies

  • labor relations
  • corporate policy
  • advocacy

Putting it to work

  • regulate corporate power
  • support ethical businesses

Questions to consider

  • When does profit harm the public?
  • How can business serve everyone?

Another view

Profit motives can sometimes align with social good through competition.

More from Gerry Spence

  1. When any system has for its goal the advancement of the system over the betterment of its individual members, such a system is embedded in slavery.

    Permalink to quote #10
  2. To accept capitalism and Free Enterprise as articles of faith without agreeing that we must be free to consider whether what is offered is free and freeing is …

    Permalink to quote #12
  3. As we drive down the freeways, we see the new cars, but not the massive new-car loans that enslave their drivers to the banks.

    Permalink to quote #9

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