Private initiative

“ The Council shall advise the President, through the White House Office of Private Sector Initiatives, with respect to the objectives and conduct of private sector initiative policies, including methods of increasing public awareness of the importance of public/private partnerships; removing barriers to development of effective social service programs which are administered by private organizations ”

“ Once they are here, we might have a land and labor bureau that would take in the whole country, and serve as a great directory and distributing agency, instead of leaving it to private initiative to take up the crowds,—something much more comprehensive than anything now existing. ”

“ It cannot plead its inherently private character or its subordination to the market as cover for the pursuit of different goals of particular interest to itself. The public agency has an unquestioned tendency to pursue goals that reflect its own interest and convenience and to adapt social objective thereto. ”

“ Government, not understanding its true relations to the people, failed to provide them. Private enterprise, more sagacious and more perceptive of the actual demands of the age, stepped forward, and, taking advantage of governmental supineness, developed the true greatness of the country. The time has now come, and the government is in position and understanding, to not only guarantee all needed internal improvements to the public, but also to take charge of those already existing, and to conduct them in the interests of the people. ”

“ It was guided by the belief that successful problemsolving requires more than Federal action alone, that it involves a full partnership among all branches and all levels of government and public policies which nurture and promote the creative energies of private enterprises, institutions, and individual citizens. ”

“ Not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution alone can supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation. ”

“ Moreover, the Federal Government should, where feasible, foster greater private-sector cooperation in enforcement, promote information sharing with the private sector, and establish predictable outcomes for private conduct. ”

“ The State originated from the natural desire which men experience to obtain certain goods, such as peace, security of life and property, of personal rights and privileges, etc., etc. These are goods which neither individuals, nor families, nor private corporations can procure for themselves satisfactorily. People therefore unite to establish a State, in order to attain, through the State, what they cannot do by their own private exertions. The State, then, is made by the people and for the people. In our form of government it is a mere corporate agency. ”

“ Foreigners who come to this country, foreign leaders, of course, who come to this country -- the administration believes it's important to listen to the causes of the American people, whether it's an individual or it's a business or whether it's labor. Q But is it appropriate for administration officials to meet with corporate executives who are seeking private action by the government -- seeking action to benefit their specific private interests? ”

“ In whatever way relief may come, whether by regulation or public ownership, the essential fact is the dominance of public interest over private interest at the points where private departs from public interest, and the essential instrumentality for the realization of this fact in a republic is the actual, complete, and continuous control of the Government by the people. ”

“ Policies of the national government should recognize the responsibility of-and should encourage opportunities for-individuals, families, neighborhoods, local governments, and private associations to achieve their personal, social, and economic objectives through cooperative effort. ”

“ His business being a useful one, it is the interest of the public that the ordinary motives should exist for carrying it on, and that neither law nor opinion should prevent an operation beneficial to the public from being attended with as much private advantage as is compatible with full and free competition. ”

“ The necessity becomes more urgent every day, as scientific and economic developments raise first one affair and then another to the level of public or quasi-public functions. In the last century, locomotion, lighting, heating, education, forced themselves upon public control or public management, and now with the development of Trusts a whole host of businesses, that were once the affair of competing private concerns, claim the same attention. ”

“ There are, I venture to say, very few undertakings of equal magnitude which are represented by so large a number of parties, and it thus becomes practicable to impress upon the direction and management of the enterprise that broad, liberal, impartial, and, as it were, national character which is essential to its proper development. If our success is what we expect and intend it shall be, we shall claim the honor of it for our institutions—those institutions which enable private individuals to accomplish what in other countries vast governmental efforts are required to effect. ”

“ I am sure of this, that so long as men agree to maintain society, they will more and more agree that the question of private or corporate or public control of the industrial opportunities upon which the good of all depends is in the last resort a question of administration. Is the public welfare most likely to be subserved by public or by proxy management? ”

“ Everywhere, along with the reprobation of Government intrusion into various spheres where private activities should be left to themselves, I have contended that in its special sphere, the maintenance of equitable relations among citizens, governmental action should be extended and elaborated. ”

“ Enough has not been done in this direction; when all has been done that can be done, then, and not till then, it will be time to think of starting an official agency. And lastly be it said that all which has been written above applies to State philanthropy. For private effort we have no criticism but praise, and no sentiment but good-will. ”

“ The chief aim of their organized government, such as it was, seems to have been to leave themselves free to go about their private business, with as little interference from the demands of public business as possible. ”

“ To achieve these ends, the Federal Government has to be a partner, a partner with the private sector, with State and local governments, with individual citizens to strengthen our communities, a partner in promoting opportunity and at the same time demanding more responsibility. ”

“ A growing sense of personal responsibility both on the part of those who suffered from existing conditions and on the part of those who profited by them was paving the way for a speedy application and a willing acceptance of a system of conservative public regulation of private business in which careful consideration would be given to the rights of all persons. ”

“ In considering the harm done to civic duty by selfish personal interests we were led to observe that the fewer points of contact between government and the pecuniary interests of private citizens, the better both for the purity of government and for the conscience of the private citizen. ”

“ And when he finds it impossible to contribute to the advancement of the public good, by communicating the privileges of companies to private adventurers, he ought to facilitate the admittance of every person properly qualified into such associations. ”

“ The success of such institutions is not such as to justify any attempt to establish them in the United States, at least until every reasonable effort has been made to solve the problem by means of private and co-operative effort. ”

“ On the other hand, I, and the few who think with me, contend that justice alone is to be administered by the community in its corporate capacity; and that the practice of generosity is to be left to private individuals, and voluntarily-formed combinations of individuals. Insuring each citizen's safety in person and property, as well as insuring him such returns for his services as his fellow-citizens agree to give, is a public affair; while affording him help, and giving him benefits beyond those he has earned, is a private affair. ”

“ And so on the one hand, we know this has to be lead by the private sector. We do think that smart policy on our part can send the right signals to the private sector. And you guys are helping us do that. ”

“ But every successfully conducted private business establishment in the kingdom was an example of the ease with which public ones could be reformed as soon as there was the effective will to find out the way. ”

“ This view of the development challenge underlines in each and every case our basic economy policies, particularly those governing the role of private enterprise in the economy. There have been questions raised as to the role of private enterprise. ”

“ Such assistance as can be given through the action of the public authorities and of our private citizens, through friendly counsel and cooperation, and through economic and financial support, not for any warlike effort but for reproductive enterprise, not to provide means for unsound government financing but to establish sound business administration should be unhesitatingly provided. ”

“ In guiding or opposing counciis, by which great public interests are fought to be promoted, men must look to the means by which the country may be benefited, independently of private interest, and in possible cases, independently of private reputation. In the machine of State are many movements with which the people are not acquainted ”

“ You sell ’em out; you turn over the whole thing—the city, its property, and its people—to Business, to the big fellows; to the business leaders of the people. You deliver, not only franchises, privileges, private rights and public properties, and values, Boss: you—all of you together—have delivered the government itself to these men, so that today this city, this State, and the national government represent, normally, not the people, not the great mass of common folk, who need protection, but—Business ”

“ The public may reward the ingenuity, industry and inventions of particular members, and support a private undertaking as far as is reasonable; but every encouragement given, ought to be at the expence of the whole community, not at that of particular denominations of inhabitants. ”

“ In the political field there are private political parties and the public association, namely, the government, or the political party in power. Among juristic associations there are the privately-organized vigilance committees and the public associations, such as the police, the courts, the prisons. In the realm of economics there are private individual entrepreneurs, partnerships, corporations ”

“ We will have rules or laws for people who need them, and men in the same business who amount to enough and are American enough to be safe as laws to themselves, will continue to have their initiative and to make their business a profession, a mould, an art form into which they pour their lives. The pouring of the lives of men like this into their business is the one thing that the business and the government want. ”

“ Applying the standards of society as a whole, we perceive that the completely independent and sovereign individual existence of private enterprises is only the historically conditioned form, whereas it is social interconnections that provide the foundation. ”

“ Hence as a private man has a right to say, what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their Substance, for the Administration of publick affairs. ”

“ The chief political value of such private men, in there associated capacity, and the special advantage they possess over all other bodies convened for consultation with a view to the public good, consist in their being free to discuss and advocate just measures, with simple directness and without side issues, and in their ability to enlighten, advance and fortify public opinion in respect to these measures. ”

“ The state expresses the cooperative or mutual-veto will of that part of society which is politically organized for this purpose. Private property expresses the individual will of the several private owners, or of the private chief, whether patriarch, pope, suzerain, boss, or industrial monopolist, who is at the head of the particular institution. The sociological view, being strictly inductive, does not impart to the theory of the state that which is potential and ideal, but only that which is actual and historical. ”

“ All experience affirms that wherever private enterprise will avail it is most wise for the General Government to leave to that and individual watchfulness the location and execution of all means of communication. ”

“ It is my considered opinion and I recommend that where the activi­ties of these government corporations can be taken over by private enterprise, and whenever their pioneering objectives have been basically accomplished, such corporations should be sold and transferred as soon as possible to private enterprise under reasonable terms and conditions, except those performing mainly social or governmental functions many of which can be converted into regular government offices or agencies. ”

“ Government aid, when given merely in default of private enterprise, should be so given as to be as far as possible a course of education for the people in the art of accomplishing great objects by individual energy and voluntary co-operation. ”

“ But it was a pleasure to see the growing manifestation of a commonwealth spirit, the organization of public opinion, and the clearer vision of the demands of public service. Even among the officials the idea that the Government was merely a taxing and office-holding organization was giving way, especially among the younger men, to a desire that the functions of government should be used for developmental purposes, in helping the people towards better methods in agriculture and industry, in encouraging improved communications and public works of many kinds. ”