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The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change
Tom C.W. Lin
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Being pragmatic is not surrender. Being pragmatic is not cynicism. Being pragmatic is not selling out. In truth, being pragmatic is often the only real path to progress in an uncertain, complicated world.”
“While politicians like to say that some issues are “more than politics” or “beyond politics,” if they were being honest with us and themselves, they would confess that the truly important and consequential issues of our time need politics and the political process.”
“We prefer our tribes to the others. We believe in the superiority of our tribe, and we push back against those who threaten our group. Our tribes give us a sense of belonging, cooperation, purpose, comfort, and support. We nurture our tribes with myths and morals, facts and fictions, to bind ourselves to one another.”
“We nurture our tribes with myths and morals, facts and fictions, to bind ourselves to one another. Yet these ties that bind us can also blind us. They can blind us to our limited imagination, to our prejudices, to our similarities, to our shared humanity, to our common hopes, and to our greater good.”
“We are a tribal species. Unlike young schoolchildren, we prefer division to addition. We divide ourselves into groups of our own justification, sensible or not. Hunters or gatherers. Settlers or nomads. Men or women. Cis or trans. Natives or immigrants. Citizens or noncitizens. Black or White. Rich or poor. Gay or straight. Believers or nonbelievers. Extroverts or introverts. Rural or urban. Nationalists or globalists. Republican or Democrat. Conservative or progressive.”
“Too many Black communities and families have been left behind in the growth and progress of America. Intergenerational wealth and capital accumulation still remain elusive for too many. Many uneven and unfair structures of systemic rac- ism seem to have mutated into forms even stronger and more difficult to dismantle. And making it all worse is the inability or unwillingness of too many of our political leaders and institutions to address matters of race—or to address it in an honest, nuanced, and constructive fashion, given all of the raw histories, complexities, and emotions that it engenders.”
“Today, private for-profit universities are common, as are private prisons, law enforcement, tax collection, and military forces. The corporate encroachment into traditional governmental functions even extends into areas of foreign affairs, foreign aid, and national defense.”
“This longstanding bipartisan revolving door between government and business reflects the inconvenient realities of life in a capitalistic democratic republic. On the one hand, when work- ing well, this revolving door allows businesses and government to draw on talented, ethical individuals from the private and public sectors to serve the interests of both shareholders and citizens. On the other hand, this revolving door can lead to corrosive cronyism and corruption that eats away at the integrity of both business and government as narrow interests are served, to the detriment of shareholders and citizens.”
“There were Black churches in America before we even became a country. Slaves organized churches in present-day South Carolina and Georgia before they were freed, and before we as colonies broke free from the tyranny of Great Britain.”
“There is simply no substitute for good, effective government in a democracy.”
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