During an interview with the New York Daily News, presidential candidate senator Bernie Sanders broke down his oft-quoted criticism of corporate America into the root of the issue.
Sanders said that he feels a great deal of frustration and anger at what he views to be a selfish and greedy attitude by many corporations who have no respect for the people of the nation that helped them grow and achieve. According to Sanders, it is this lack of respect and concern for their fellow man which makes corporations immoral and deserving of such harsh criticism.
Sanders: General Electric, good example. General Electric was created in this country by American workers and American consumers. What we have seen over the many years is shutting down of many major plants in this country. Sending jobs to low-wage countries. And General Electric, doing a very good job avoiding the taxes. In fact, in a given year, they pay nothing in taxes. That’s greed.
That is greed and that’s selfishness. That is lack of respect for the people of this country.
Daily News: And so how does that destroy the fabric of America?
Sanders: I’ll tell you how it does. If you are a corporation and the only damn thing you are concerned about is your profits. Let’s just give an example of a corporation that’s making money in America, today, but desiring to move to China or to Mexico to make even more money. That is destroying the moral fabric of this country. That is saying that I don’t care that the workers, here have worked for decades. It doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is that I can make a little bit more money. That the dollar is all that is almighty. And I think that is the moral fabric.
To me, what moral is, I’ve got to be concerned about you. You’ve got to be concerned about my wife. That’s moral to me. That’s what I believe in. And if the only thing that matters to you is making an extra buck, you don’t care about my family, I think that’s immoral. And I think what corporate America has shown us in the last number of years, what Wall Street has shown us, the only thing that matters is their profits and their money. And the hell with the rest of the people of this country.
