Adolf A. Berle

Quotes

• “The property owner who invests in a modern corporation so far surrenders his wealth to those in control of the corporation that he has exchanged the position of independent owner for one in which he may become merely recipient of the wages of capital... [Such owners] have surrendered the right that the corporation should be operated in their sole interest...”
• “The Russian revolution was nominally based on Communist dogma; but its significant struggle was to find some instrument by which a vast backward country could be mauled into industrialization. The capitalist revolution in which the United States was the leader found apter, more efficient and more flexible means through collectivizing capital in corporations.”
• “[The communist state has thus far proved itself a] brutal, blunt, and fumbling instrument, [while elsewhere capitalism has been evolving its own”
• “Major corporations in most instances do not seek capital. They form it themselves.”
• “[Corporations must manifest in this area a conscience, or be required to] accept direction from the conscience of the government. This conscience must be built into institutions so that it can be invoked as a right by the individuals and interests subject to the corporate power... For twentieth-century capitalism will justify itself not only by its out-turn product, but by its content of life values.”
• “[The corporation is an invaluable auxiliary to the conduct of foreign affairs by the Government, and] has become an international as well as a national instrument. It is a mighty institution which thus far has not become, and has manifested no great desire to become, an independent political force. In international life it is an experiment in non-national organization, pledged only to discharge certain economic functions.”

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