“The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.”
― Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

“In my world, people are always plotting. You
have no idea of all the crimes people in business commit every
day. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them.
Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporate
ethics’ last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron or
WorldCom is an aberration? It’s only the tip. Business is a religion.
Probably the only one practiced all over the world.”
― Andrew Vachss, Down Here

“He knows how to market himself well. Nowadays, that's all that seems to count. He's rebellious in a way that appeals to people with vain, shallow taste. So of course he manipulates his audiences with the blessing of his recording company and the financial investors behind his brand.”
― Jess C. Scott, Sven

“Capitalism is a social system owned by the capitalistic class, a small network of very wealthy and powerful businessmen, who compromise the health and security of the general population for corporate gain.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Then, in the 1980's, came the paroxysm of downsizing, and the very nature of the corporation was thrown into doubt. In what began almost as a fad and quickly matured into an unshakable habit, companies were 'restructuring,' 'reengineering,' and generally cutting as many jobs as possible, white collar as well as blue . . . The New York Times captured the new corporate order succintly in 1987, reporting that it 'eschews loyalty to workers, products, corporate structures, businesses, factories, communities, even the nation. All such allegiances are viewed as expendable under the new rules. With survival at stake, only market leadership, strong profits and a high stock price can be allowed to matter'.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

“You still could go to some industry or some university or the government and if you could persuade them you had something on the ball—why, then, they might put up the cash after cutting themselves in on just about all of the profits. And, naturally, they'd run the show because it was their money and all you had done was the sweating and the bleeding.”
― Clifford D. Simak, All the Traps of Earth and Other Stories

“A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people, but those of multinational corporations.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“When the greedy executives of rich religions go before Him, they will say, "Remember me for who I was." And God will answer, "I do remember but you have forgotten who you use to be.”
― Shannon Alder

“Koch's youthful idealism about libertarianism had largely devolved into a rationale for corporate self-interest.”
― John Charles Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America

“True genius is the one of the heart, not of intellect. Because intellect-less heart, though exploited a lot, still does good, whereas heartless intellect, with or without the awareness of it, ends up only exploiting others.

But here's the thing, even true genius of intellect is not without its fare sense of responsibility towards the society. It's only the genius of halfbaked intellect that has absolutely no sense of service towards society - the only sense they have towards society, is that of domination or control.

That is why one of the guardians of nuclear physics, Albert Einstein though initially encouraged the US government in a letter, to develop a nuclear weapon of their own against the Nazi nuclear program, ended up being an outspoken activist of nuclear-disarmament, and called his letter to Roosevelt "one great mistake of life".

That is why the mother of radioactivity, Marie Curie never made a dime out of her discovery of radium, because to her, even amidst obscurity, science was service, unlike most so-called scientists of the modern world.

That is why the man who literally electrified the world with his invention of alternating current, Nikola Tesla embraced happily other people stealing his inventions, and died a poor man in his apartment.

You see, it's easy to make billions out of other people's pioneering work, the sign of true genius is an uncorrupted sense of service.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“We liberals and progressives need to do a better job at verbalizing what we are for, and not just what we are against. If we want a public option, we must make the case for it. Every time the Republicans start talking about the corruption, waste, and negligence of “Big Government,” we should talk about those same qualities in Big Corporations. If we want to end factory farming, decrease income inequality, and end discrimination in all its insidious forms, we must fight for those things and so much more. It is a subtle but important difference to stand for equality rather than to merely stand against inequality, and I believe that within this positive framework, more transformative arguments can be made.”
― Michael Bihovsky

“Corporate social responsibility is only a PR stunt. Business with warmth lasts forever in people’s heart.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth

“It is more important to look holistically at the root of why anyone would want to avoid work so badly that they’d game the system and leave the workforce altogether. When work is fulfilling, dignifying, respects our skills and nourishes our talents and souls, it becomes a pleasure not a burden; something we would look for not run away from.

[From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]”
― Louis Yako

“Another dangerous neoliberal word circulating everywhere that is worth zooming in on is the word ‘resilience’. On the surface, I think many people won’t object to the idea that it is good and beneficial for us to be resilient to withstand the difficulties and challenges of life. As a person who lived through the atrocities of wars and sanctions in Iraq, I’ve learnt that life is not about being happy or sad, not about laughing or crying, leaving or staying. Life is about endurance. Since most feelings, moods, and states of being are fleeting, endurance, for me, is the common denominator that helps me go through the darkest and most beautiful moments of life knowing that they are fleeing. In that sense, I believe it is good for us to master the art of resilience and endurance. Yet, how should we think about the meaning of ‘resilience’ when used by ruling classes that push for wars and occupations, and that contribute to producing millions of deaths and refugees to profit from plundering the planet? What does it mean when these same warmongers fund humanitarian organizations asking them to go to war-torn countries to teach people the value of ‘resilience’? What happens to the meaning of ‘resilience’ when they create frighteningly precarious economic structures, uncertain employment, and lay off people without accountability? All this while also asking us to be ‘resilient’…
As such, we must not let the word ‘resilience’ circulate or get planted in the heads of our youth uncritically. Instead, we should raise questions about what it really means. Does it mean the same thing for a poor young man or woman from Ghana, Ecuador, Afghanistan vs a privileged member from the upper management of a U.S. corporation? Resilience towards what? What is the root of the challenges for which we are expected to be resilient? Does our resilience solve the cause or the root of the problem or does it maintain the status quo while we wait for the next disaster? Are individuals always to blame if their resilience doesn’t yield any results, or should we equally examine the social contract and the entire structure in which individuals live that might be designed in such a way that one’s resilience may not prevail no matter how much perseverance and sacrifice one demonstrates? There is no doubt that resilience, according to its neoliberal corporate meaning, is used in a way that places the sole responsibility of failure on the shoulders of individuals rather than equally holding accountable the structure in which these individuals exist, and the precarious circumstances that require work and commitment way beyond individual capabilities and resources. I find it more effective not to simply aspire to be resilient, but to distinguish between situations in which individual resilience can do, and those for which the depth, awareness, and work of an entire community or society is needed for any real and sustainable change to occur. But none of this can happen if we don’t first agree upon what each of us mean when we say ‘resilience,’ and if we have different definitions of what it means, then we should ask: how shall we merge and reconcile our definitions of the word so that we complement not undermine what we do individually and collectively as people. Resilience should not become a synonym for surrender. It is great to be resilient when facing a flood or an earthquake, but that is not the same when having to endure wars and economic crises caused by the ruling class and warmongers.

[From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]”
― Louis Yako

“Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected. The cost of labor has been nullified through the degradation of Africans at the bottom of an economic chain that purports to exonerate all participants of accountability through a shrewd scheme of obfuscation adorned with hypocritical proclamations about the preservation of human rights. It is a system of absolute exploitation for absolute profit. Cobalt mining is the latest in a long history of “enormous and atrocious” lies that have tormented the people of the Congo.”
― Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

“It does not matter how great the idea is (for these IPOs), they cannot be valued simply in billions. For that matter, no skill is worth billions. Look at the contrast here –Four hundred million for chucking somebody out and on the other side people losing their life savings at the age of 60 years? Where do you draw the line?
Look at the gap.”
― Ravindra Shukla, A Maverick Heart: Between Love and Life

“For decades, the exploitative capitalist system and neoliberalism have been trying to persuade the world that it is for our best interest to reduce (or even erase) the public sector and give more power to the greedy private sector. They have been pushing -with great success – for the privatization of every service that can benefit the poor and marginalized people. They have and still are trying to get rid of universal healthcare anywhere their hands can reach. Why do they do so? The answer is simpler than we think: it is to keep people at the mercy of the greedy capitalist system that sees individuals as either potential cheap laborers to benefit from or a burden to dispose of when no longer usable. This global pandemic should be a wake-up call to all of us about how duped the world has been all along by this narrative. How many more disasters and pandemics will it take for the world to wake up?”
― Louis Yako

“There were endless bodies of passengers wearing different colors of clothes, carrying handbags, and electronic devices of different sizes and shapes, giving them the illusive feeling of uniqueness, but probably made by a handful of corporations.”
― Louis Yako

“The attention of a company must be on the welfare of its consumers, not on draining their wallets.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

“Purpose driven technology will continue to flourish, whereas profit driven technology will either perish or destroy the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

“Apple doesn’t care about privacy. All it cares about is privacy for the privileged.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family

“Why do you think Apple can become the first trillion dollar company in history, not because they can innovate, but because they can abuse the shallowness and vanity of the masses.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society

“In a blind pursuit of endless revenue, we've confused inflation with civilization.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth

“...most of the parade's attendees clung to a notion of what their town was, what values it embodied, what hopes it carved out, though by 2007 its once-largest employers, a steel tube plant and two plate glass manufacturers, were over twenty years gone and most of the county's small farms had been gobbled up by Smithfield, Syngenta, Tyson, and Archer Daniels Midland. Many of those residents who had not been born in this country but who'd made their way from Kuala Lumpur or Jordan or Delhi or Honduras waved those flags the hardest when the casket went by.”
― Stephen Markley, Ohio

“In a world full of Elon Musks, be a Dan Price.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“You know why there is so-much power outage in the world? Because the humans are unaware of their own electricity, both metaphorically and literally. And one who realizes their inner electricity and brings it out to electrify the whole world, is the true CEO of the world.

I don't care for being the CEO of some puny anti-humanitarian company, for I am already a CEO - I am the CEO of planet earth - I am the Chief Evolution Officer of the human world - so is every single human whose responsibility towards society outweighs their primeval drive for narcissism and self-preservation.

In every age, in every time, there'll come ten of us Chief Evolution Officers to make mincemeat of the megalomaniacal ploy of anti-humanitarian giants while driving human evolution in a humane direction.”
― Abhijit Naskar, High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination

“We are creating a world in which what nourishes the soul rarely makes people employable, and what makes them employable often crushes the soul. A nourished mind and soul are the core of what makes us human, and we really can’t continue to ignore our minds and souls with impunity.”
― Louis Yako

“Beware of the dogs in the corporate woods waiting to fleece you. Don't let them take ownership of what is rightfully yours.”
― Charles D. McCarrick, Lessons My Brothers Taught Me: How to Transform Your Personal Qualities Into A Successful Business

“Corporate alchemy isn’t just dark magic; it’s a tragic comedy, a satire as I imagine being written by Kafka on a bad day.”
― Rove Monteux, What is Wrong with Corporations Today

“Many people have asked me recently what I make of all the workplaces who were so quick to roll back on their DEI practices. My answer is that these are very likely the kind of workplaces that have abused, misapplied, and co-opted DEI initiatives all along. It is proof that they were never serious about such initiatives in the first place. For them, DEI work was just playing the game, and the game they play is quick to change when the rules of that game are changed.

[From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”
― Louis Yako