Conflict of interest

“ The foregoing discussion accepted for the purpose of argument the majority's statement of the interest involved here. But as so often happens in balancing cases, the wrong interests are being balanced. ”

“ A third example is the opposition sometimes made to legitimate interferences of government in the economical affairs of society, grounded on a misapplication of the maxim, that an individual is a better judge than the government of what is for his own pecuniary interest. ”

“ But interest is a better and more permanent basis. Its wonderful capacity for concretion bestows on noble orders, hierarchies and stockjobbers, power for oppression, and loyalty to each other in defrauding; and why may it not also secure the fidelity of nations to themselves, though composed of people equally as vicious? ”

“ There are cases in which the general interest will be in danger to be sacrificed to the collision of some supposed local interests. Jealousies in matters of this kind are as apt to exist as they are apt to be erroneous. ”

“ The majority interest, by numbers, seizes the power of the state and proceeds to realize its own interest against all others in the most ruthless fashion. That capital has means of defense is unquestionable ”

“ In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great preëminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. ”

“ Always he will find the constant harking back to the just regulation of the conditions of contract between the powerful and the weak whenever public interest demanded it—the cause of the supreme struggle with which the movement began and with which every milestone is marked. ”

“ Where the problem is relatively simple, as it is apt to be when private interests only are involved, it generally proves adequate. But with the increasing complexity of society, the public interest tends to become omnipresent ”

“ But commerce will exclaim that she is an enemy to orders or separate interests, that she is a republican, and in favour of equal rights and privileges. We shall believe her if she unites in the expulsion of a separate interest ”

“ Whatever bargains are struck up amongst the betrayers of their country, we must find the money, and pay both sides. How wise and advantageous would it then be for us, not to interest ourselves in the agreements or squabbles of ambitious men, who are building their fortunes upon our ruin? ”

“ That angry reaction will be all the more probable if it should appear that the legislation against the Trusts, which is now being devised, will not remedy the evil as thoroughly or as promptly as the public interest demands. ”

“ The great questions will, as a matter of fact, be chiefly questions of economics, of industry, of political principle and theory, and so far as they are mere struggles of interest they will be class conflicts rather than national conflicts. ”

“ However the family of exclusive interests may quarrel among themselves, yet they will unite when the whole craft is in danger; and even when at variance, they will be careful to advance arguments in favour of the principle which sustains their common interest. ”

“ It makes a Breach in a Community, when Particular Men shall take upon them to Divide from the Common Service of the Body: And He that sets up a Private Interest, Separate from the Publique, Discontinues the Connexion of the Government, by Cutting off That Link of the Chain. But the Miseries and Calamities that follow upon departing from the Known Rules and Measures of Political Order, are sufficient to Enlighten us in the Reason of Political Methods, and to Excite us to an Agreement in all Reciprocal Services, One with Another. ”

“ But if the two old parties are to continue to divide the field, then, for the sake of the public interest, I want each of them to be as good, and not as bad as possible; for it is certain that in the derelictions and vices of one the bad elements in the other will find a license for wrongdoing on their part, without forfeiting their chance of success. ”

“ The great danger of artisans and agriculturists lies in the legal depredations of the various parties actuated by exclusive interests. natural to the British policy, such as a court interest, a military interest, a stock interest, and various other separate interest, whose business it is to get what they can from the rest of the nation. ”

“ Under such circumstances, the only effectual barrier against oppression, accidental or intentional, is to separate its operations, to balance interest against interest, ambition against ambition, die combinations and spirit of dominion of one body against the like combinations and spirit of another. ”

“ Don't you see, Ralph, don't you realize what that kind of cross-purpose distribution of power in a new and pioneering society can mean? When you have a three or four-way conflict, when everyone is bidding for what you've got and can't afford to sell, or what you haven't got but would like to sell, or what you can't sell for what you'd like to get? ”

“ This substitution of a new line of cleavage for the old one may seem a questionable matter for rejoicing. But in any great community, conflicts of interest must always arise. The recognition of the problems which await the Republic in the near future does not imply any doubt of her ability to arrive at a wise and just solution of them. ”

“ And business is competition, and competition's private war according to rules of custom. I'm supposed to be a lawyer. That's a succession of jobs at beating somebody else and getting paid for it. This civil war is one collection of private interests against another collection. ”

“ In order to destroy despotism and the inequality of conditions, men must cease from competition and must associate their interests. Let employer and employed (now enemies and rivals) become associates. ”

“ Will the audience make a separate interest, which bestows on it exclusive wealth and power, subservient to the general interest, which rigidly refuses to feed it with either.
If it is a moral truth, that mankind prefer themselves to others, then it is a moral certainty, that members, both of the government and of the corporation, will prefer the interest of the corporation to the interest of the nation. ”

“ Then society, as a whole, having an interest in each of its members, and a stake in the proceeds, must be the arbiter in all industrial disputes, and the interested parties, being loyal members of the social compact, must yield obedience to the public will. ”

“ In general, whenever opposing sets of interests are conceived in an absolute way so that the fulfilment of one set demands the liquidation of the other, without compromise or pity or reference to other interests that are common, we have the makings of social catastrophes. ”

“ It deliberately invades the spheres of private enterprise; it deliberately seeks all the profit; it deliberately destroys the ambition and the power of the person; it deliberately annihilates and stifles individual initiative. ”

“ Cautious and sagacious, though resolute and bold, gifted with an amazing penetration into the complex causes which control the competition of modern life, he swayed successive administrations, and crushed down the fiercest opposition. ”

“ As neither can control the other, each will have an obvious and sensible interest in this reciprocal forbearance. And where there is an immediate common interest, we may safely count upon its operation. ”

“ The want of protection to general interests, the absence of the strong bond of experienced benefits; the oppressive nature of the conquering government; the sacrifice of the general interests to the selfish ambition or rapacious passions of a section of the community, whether civil or military, which had got possession of power. ”

“ Everything sickens me,—every detail of the life that is now, the stock exchange and newspapers, alleged art and trade, and the whole false principle that is under it all. I can't fight them, the contest sickens me. It is all wrong, the principle of your reform; you are wrong yourself. ”

“ The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act: a general association takes place, and common interest produces common security. ”

“ But, where a nation is once divided, interest and animosity will keep open the breach, without being supported by any other principles; or, at worst, a body of discontented people can change, and take up what principles they please. ”

“ Men are the best judges, it was said, of their own interest; and the interference of rulers in a commercial transaction is the interference of people inferior in knowledge of the facts, and whose interests are 'sinister' or inconsistent with those of the persons really concerned. ”

“ The enervating influences of wealth, the extreme conservatism thereby fostered, and the resulting disposition to accept any compromise rather than interfere with the free course of trade, may create conditions breeding hostilities. ”

“ Every party of interest, whether a noble, a religious, or a military order; or created by a corrupting degree of legislative or executive patronage; or by usurping a power of regulating property by means of paper credit, charters or fraudulent wars; is the instrument and ally of the power by which its interest can be fed or starved. It must acquire an influence over legislation, both to do its own work, and the work of the power it serves. ”

“ He would never admit that he was the guardian of one interest more than another, and he would interfere over and over again as often as stockholders, bondholders, employees, shippers, etc., could persuade him that they had a grievance. ”

“ Although interest will, in general, operate effectually to produce political good, yet there are causes in which certain factitious circumstances may divert it from its natural channel, or throw or retain it in an artificial one. ”

“ A spendthrift and wasteful nation disciplined itself to the practice of care and economy, and a nation of individualists, jealous of personal rights, acceded willingly to Government interference in private business and Government control of business relations for the sake of the country’s need. ”

“ At the same stroke they direct the popular interest to other, nobler, institutionally less hazardous matters than the unequal distribution of wealth or of creature comforts. Warlike and patriotic preoccupations fortify the barbarian virtues of subordination and prescriptive authority. ”

“ If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them—if I speak of their danger to the monopolists of power—am* I not a wise counsellor both to the people and to their rulers? ”

“ A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. ”

“ To-day our society, the latest word of civilization, has distributed power according to the number of combinations, and we come to the forces called business, thought, money, and eloquence. Authority thus divided is steadily approaching a social dissolution, with interest as its one opposing barrier. We depend no longer on either religion or physical force, but upon intellect. ”

“ That there are some legitimate concealments of an organized character--such as the privacies of the family and business firms, the temporary concealment of public negotiations at critical stages, the occasional withdrawal of scandals which could only disturb and demoralize communities, and the secrecy of military combinations; nor are we prepared totally to condemn all private plans and arrangements between good and true citizens, in great emergencies, to resist the machinations of the wicked. ”

“ The large financial interests, which need the favours of government or seek release from its burdens, sometimes go to war among themselves, and [Pg 26] in these contests control of the powers of the boss gives valuable strategic advantages. ”

“ When this solidification of many into one has been reached, we shall be at last face to face with the naked truth that it is not only the form but the fact of arbitrary power, of control without consent, of rule without representation that concerns us. ”

“ But the argument is violently paradoxical, because it literally means that interests are so very antagonistic that in the absence of a government to hold them in check there would be such a multiplicity of conflicts, wasting the energies of society, that in the end everybody would suffer, even the strongest. ”