“Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare.”

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation…" by Theodore Roosevelt?
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Theodore Roosevelt 445
American politician, 26th president of the United States 1858–1919

Related quotes

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Vince Lombardi photo
Oswald Mosley photo

“That consecrated combination of private interests and public plunders.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Mosley on the banking system, Annual Report (1925) of the Independent Labour Party, quoted in Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (Papermacs, 1981), p. 142.

Milton Friedman photo

“The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.”

“Introduction”, p. 3
Free to Choose (1980)

Yoshijirō Umezu photo

“The certain way to victory…lies in making everything on Imperial soil contribute to the war effort…combining the total material and spiritual strength of the nation…”

Yoshijirō Umezu (1882–1949) Japanese general

Quoted in "Suicide Squads: Axis and Allied Special Attack Weapons of World War II" - Page 267 - by Richard O'Neill - History - 1981.

John Maynard Keynes photo
Leon Trotsky photo

“The concrete is a combination of abstractions — not an arbitrary or subjective combination but one that corresponds to the laws of the movement of a given phenomenon.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Source: In Defense of Marxism (1942), p. 147

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance. Many of those who have made it their vocation to denounce the great industrial combinations which are popularly, although with technical inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especially to hatred and fear. These are precisely the two emotions, particularly when combined with ignorance, which unfit men for the exercise of cool and steady judgment. In facing new industrial conditions, the whole history of the world shows that legislation will generally be both unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm inquiry and with sober self-restraint. […] All this is true; and yet it is also true that there are real and grave evils, one of the chief being over-capitalization because of its many baleful consequences; and a resolute and practical effort must be made to correct these evils. There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations known as trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. This […] is based upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)

Simone Weil photo

“No combination of circumstances ever cancels this obligation. If there are circumstances which seem to cancel it as regards a certain man or category of men, they impose it in fact all the more imperatively.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Context: Anyone whose attention and love are really directed towards the reality outside the world recognizes at the same time that he is bound, both in public and private life, by the single and permanent obligation to remedy, according to his responsibilities and to the extent of his power, all the privations of soul and body which are liable to destroy or damage the earthly life of any human being whatsoever.
This obligation cannot legitimately be held to be limited by the insufficiency of power or the nature of the responsibilities until everything possible has been done to explain the necessity of the limitation to those who will suffer by it; the explanation must be completely truthful and must be such as to make it possible for them to acknowledge the necessity.
No combination of circumstances ever cancels this obligation. If there are circumstances which seem to cancel it as regards a certain man or category of men, they impose it in fact all the more imperatively.
The thought of this obligation is present to all men, but in very different forms and in very varying degrees of clarity. Some men are more and some are less inclined to accept — or to refuse — it as their rule of conduct.

Related topics