Wendell Berry: Soul is Sold to Employer
on Thursday, September 10, 2015Wendell Berry Money Quotation saying we have sold our allegiance to our employer, that decision represents our financial soul. Wendell Berry said:
“A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance” — Wendell Berry
In this quote, author and environmentalist Wendell Berry is criticizing how modern corporations function and the priorities they often embody. Berry views a corporation primarily as an accumulation of capital – a “pile of money” – rather than as an organization of people working toward a shared purpose.
He argues that for some individuals involved in corporations, their “moral allegiance” has been replaced by a primary allegiance to maximizing profits and growing the value of the company’s assets. Berry’s perspective is that when profit becomes the sole or overriding motivation, it can undermine ethical decision-making and responsibility to stakeholders like employees and communities.
The quote conveys Berry’s belief that corporations should prioritize more than financial measures and serve interests beyond just accumulating wealth for its own sake.