Michael Parenti, Ph.D., (born 1933) Political Scientist,
Political Scientist, Historian, Author, Lecturer, and Culture Critic

Wealth is pursued without moral restraint. The very rich try to crush anyone who resists their endless, heartless, unprincipled accumulation. Like any addiction, money is pursued in that obsessive,  amoral, singleminded way, revealing a total disregard for what is right or wrong, just or unjust, an indifference to other considerations and other people’s interests–and even one’s own interests should they go beyond feeding the addiction.

Thus it is necessary and desirable to have laws to protect the environment, workers’ lives, and consumer health because big business has a total indifference to such things, and–to the extent that they cut into profits–an outright hostility toward regulations on behalf of the public interest. We sometimes forget how profoundly immoral is cooperate power.

Michael Parenti, Blackshirts & Redshirts, (City Light Books, 1997), 154.