Neil H. Jacoby Quotes

Although the media editorials have roundly condemned corporations for making political contributions at home and abroad—payments which were legal in many jurisdictions—they have yet to express equal indignation about the congressmen and public officials of this and other nations who receive these payments and who, in many instances, solicited them. Media voices have also been muted about violations of the Corruption Practice Act by the big labor unions.

A fourth factor underlying the merger wave of the 1960’s was the steep rise in the load of corporate income taxation since World War II. In 1940, the effective federal corporate income-tax rate was 27 percent; in 1968, it was 50 percent. Rates of state and local taxes on business incomes have risen commensurately.

Whenever any thought or idea or moral imperative is transferred from one society to another an important question is whether that which is transferred is freely sought by the recipient or is, to one degree or another, forced down his throat. Does the transference occur freely through reading or the reports of visitors to other lands, i.e., does it occur as a voluntary importation by one society of what another has developed or found, or does it occur through the coercion of the bayonet or propaganda?

During the sixty years between 1910 and 1970, the percentage of Americans living in urban areas of 2,500 or more rose from 45.7 to 73.5, and the number of urbanites more than tripled from 42 to 150 million. Urbanization clearly has brought important benefits to people… But this overwhelming tendency of people to concentrate in cities has worsened the environment through crowding, traffic congestion, delays and loss of time, and the over-loading of transportation, marketing and living facilities.

One hallmark of a competitive market is that new firms are able to—and do—enter it… The key economic consideration is the relative difficulty of overcoming the barriers to entry, which can be measured by the advantages of established firms in the industry over potential entrants. In general, the relative difficulty of entry into any industry is determined by the amount of capital required for an efficient scale of operations,…

Because contributions for charitable and educational purposes were the earliest form of corporate social action, their pattern enables us to test the validity of our theory. Corporate giving was stimulated by federal legislation in 1935 authorizing companies to deduct from taxable income up to 5 percent on account of such gifts.

Indonesia dramatizes the dilemmas of the poor countries whose officials are forced to be corrupt. Maladministration reduces the collection of income taxes to provide revenue for the national treasury. Widespread smuggling further deprives the treasury of needed customs revenue. Lack of revenue prevents the payment of adequate salaries to the bureaucracy. This function of government is, then, fulfilled by private payments to underpaid civil servants. Thus, a vicious cycle breeds corruption in business-government relations.

Still another trend supports greater emphasis upon the social responsibilities of business firms and greater interest in the interactions between business and public policies. The great problems of contemporary society, such as environmental pollution, waste disposal, unemployment, poverty, urban renewal, and mass transit, are most likely to be solved by combining the organizational discipline of the action-oriented business corporation with the legal and taxing powers of government. Private corporations will more frequently be used to attain public purposes. At the same time, the public has made it clear that it will no longer tolerate the thrusting of private cost upon itself.

The Hippies are nonviolent anarchists who withdraw from the mainstream of society into their own communes. They are apolitical, libertarian, anti-industrialist, and essentially parasitic upon society. They have a nostalgic yearning for the smaller, simpler social orders of the past… Feeling and intuition are claimed as the source of their attitudes rather than reason and intellect.

During the war years, the United States government gave serious thought to acquiring a direct interest in Arabian [oil] reserves.

At the end of 1968, the United States contained about 1.6 million active, profit-seeking corporations and about 200 million people—one corporation for each 126 persons.

Certainly the political assets of American labor organizations are formidable in both manpower and money. Unlike corporations, eighteen million union members vote. With the union shop prevailing in most states and union dues being deducted from members’ paychecks, labor unions have a steady inflow of funds, estimated to be around $700 million per year in 1963…Indeed, many a businessman seeking a favor from government has found that his most effective course was to get the support of the leaders of the unions representing his employees!

The media have tended to emphasize the notion that it is the American company that initiates the bribe, without laying any emphasis on the fact that around the world, for hundreds of years, companies from other countries have been making payments and paying bribes, and that usually the reason they have done so is that they have been solicited or extorted by politicians and government employees. To point this out is not to negate the blame for making the payments and paying the bribes, but simply to make it clear that in many, if not most, cases the payments are made under duress. All other things being equal, an American business manager would rather avoid the costs of bribes.

How did it come about that only a few international oil companies held concessions to all of this region Middle East at the end of World War II? The answer lies in the bitter struggle of the United States government to gain an entrance for its nationals into the British-dominated Middle East, a struggle which very significantly shaped the structure of the industry as it emerged from World War II.

The emerging censorship of political payments by U.S. business corporations is a potentially important, but little noted, aspect of the recent controversies about these payments. The operating behavior of American business overseas is becoming a new dimension of the public regulations of business. Until recent years, this regulation was concerned with such matters as healthy working conditions for employees, safe and reliable products, and enforcing competition. The disclosure of political payment abroad has led federal agencies to increase still further their role as arbiters of business behavior.