A Quote by Samuel Gompers

Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional "public morals experts" in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.

Samuel Gompers

Quote Topics

Against Analysis Any Busybodies Committed Crime Dangerous Depends Doing Done Experiment Experts Fads Greatest Guise Initiative Invite Last Morality Morals Ought Own People Perils Philanthropy Pretense Professional Public Reflect Social Social Welfare Themselves Way Welfare Whatever Which Workers

Quote Author

Samuel Gompers
American - Activist
January 27, 1850 - December 13, 1924

Thus we seem to be on the verge of an expansion of welfare economics into something like a social science of ethics and politics: what was intended to be a mere porch to ethics is either the whole house or nothing at all. In so laying down its life welfare economics may be able to contribute some of its insights and analytical methods to a much broader evaluative analysis of the whole social process.

Kenneth E. Boulding

Collective insurance policies and social protections have given way to the forces of economic deregulation, the transformation of the welfare state into punitive workfare programs, the privatization of public goods and an appeal to individual accountability as a substitute for social responsibility.

Henry Giroux

For many of these people the social is just a mirror of themselves. I'm not against the social, but I want something genuinely social, not something that has been fetishized as social so that a group of people can feel better about themselves.

Andrew Keen

Concern for one?s own welfare and prosperity should not blind one to one?s social obligations or spiritual destiny?.A society in which the individuals are concerned only about material welfare will not be able to achieve harmony and peace.

Sathya Sai Baba

Congress created tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s to operate exclusively for social welfare purposes like early childhood education, environmental protection, and veteran's assistance. However, an IRS regulation allows 501(c)(4)s to operate primarily for the promotion of social welfare.

Michelle Lujan Grisham

America, in the eyes of the world, typifies above all else this quality of initiative. The greatest successes are nearly all the fruit of initiative. Why do we hold in such high esteem the achievements of the Wright brothers? Because they were illustrious examples of initiative and tenacity. And ideas are born of initiative, the children of men and women of initiative. Advancement is applied initiative. Don't imitate. Initiate.

B. C. Forbes

There's a long history of subsidized philanthropy - particularly in the USA - and again the public has come to expect corporations to play a role in their social welfare. It's become easy for some companies to profit from citizen goodwill and volunteerism.

Ravida Din

Neoliberalism emerged by defining itself against what it labelled as an unrealistic and unsustainable programme of social welfare and public spending.

Mark Fisher

Social bonds have given way under the collapse of social protections and the attack on the welfare state. Moreover, all solutions to socially produced problems are now relegated to the mantra of individual solutions.

Henry Giroux

Now [in China] within the framework of socialism - which is really social welfare in a social democratic framework - all they want to do is to get the kind of economic growth of the capitalist world. It can't be done. It creates the same kind of problems as in the capitalist world.

Harry Magdoff

Twenty thousand years ago the family was the social unit. Now the social unit has become the world, in which it may truthfully be said that each person's welfare affects that of every other.

Arthur Compton

Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.

Benazir Bhutto

What social safety net does is provide a glimmer of hope for what a democratic socialist society might look like. It makes the claim that without social provisions, without a welfare state, without a social contract, society can't survive. We need a foundation for people - economically, politically, and socially - where what the Right considers "entitlements" are really rights.

Henry Giroux

The State always moves slowly and grudgingly towards any purpose that accrues to society's advantage, but moves rapidly and with alacrity towards one that accrues to its own advantage; nor does it ever move towards social purposes on its own initiative, but only under heavy pressure, while its motion towards anti-social purposes is self-sprung.

Albert J. Nock

We want to make sure that Social Security is fixed for those people who have had that promise and there's something in the future for our younger workers. And we're not about to do a welfare program.