What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book - a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.
Aaron SwartzRead
Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it - their shareholders would revolt at anything less.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how corporate greed is often prioritized over ethical considerations due to shareholder expectations.
Aaron Swartz's quote criticizes the inherent greed that large corporations embody, suggesting that their operational frameworks are designed to maximize profit at the expense of ethical behavior. He underscores the notion that shareholders demand such greed, implying a systemic issue within corporate governance that prioritizes financial gain over moral responsibilities.
Themes
CorporationsGreedShareholdersProfitEthics
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about corporate ethics, this quote can illustrate the conflict between shareholder demands and ethical responsibilities.
More from Aaron Swartz
All quotes →Without the ability to talk about government power, there's no way for citizens to make sure this power isn't being misused.
Aaron SwartzRead
We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file-sharing networks.
Aaron SwartzRead
Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.
Aaron SwartzRead
But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
Aaron SwartzRead
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves.
Aaron SwartzRead
Similar quotes
Debt is a social and ideological construct, not a simple economic fact.
Noam ChomskyRead
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
Karl MarxRead
Free migration within Europe means that countries that have done a better job at reducing unemployment will predictably end up with more than their fair share of refugees. Workers in these countries bear the cost in depressed wages and higher unemployment, while employers benefit from cheaper labor.
Joseph StiglitzRead
The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government.
Milton FriedmanRead
Economists who adhere to rational-expectations models of the world will never admit it, but a lot of what happens in markets is driven by pure stupidity - or, rather, inattention, misinformation about fundamentals, and an exaggerated focus on currently circulating stories.
Robert J. ShillerRead
Economists love to talk about incentives, but the bottom line is that people hate being controlled or manipulated, even when done through voluntary institutions. This is one of the most important tensions in capitalism.
Tyler CowenRead