If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Robert KennedyRead
Automation provides us with wondrous increases of production and information, but does it tell us what to do with the men the machines displace? Modern industry gives us the capacity for unparalleled wealth - but where is our capacity to make that wealth meaningful to the poor of every nation?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote questions the implications of automation and industrial wealth on society, particularly regarding those displaced by machines and the poor.
Robert Kennedy's quote reflects on the dual-edged nature of automation and modern industry. While they enable increased production and wealth creation, they simultaneously raise critical ethical questions about the impact on human workers and the responsibility of society to ensure that this wealth benefits everyone, especially the less fortunate. Kennedy urges us to consider not just the advancements in technology and industry, but also the moral obligation we have to address the inequalities that arise from them.
Themes
AutomationWealthInequalityResponsibilityProgress
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the future of work, one might quote Kennedy to highlight the ethical considerations of automation.
More from Robert Kennedy
All quotes →Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
Robert KennedyRead
Within the United States, we have put great emphasis upon political freedoms. Because it has been our experience that these freedoms can lead to others.
Robert KennedyRead
It is one thing to open job opportunities. It is another to train people to fill them, or to persuade American enterprise to seek Negro as well as white applicants.
Robert KennedyRead
Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.
Robert KennedyRead
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
Robert KennedyRead
Similar quotes
People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.
Muhammad YunusRead
To get back to the kind of shared prosperity and upward mobility we once considered normal will require another era of fundamental reform, of both our economy and our democracy.
Robert ReichRead
Monetary policy ultimately must be conducted in a pragmatic manner that relies not on any particular indicator or model but, instead, reflects an ongoing assessment of a wide range of information in the context of our ever-evolving understanding of the economy.
Janet YellenRead
Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.
Ayn RandRead
The introduction of a substantial Government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available,with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation in the United States.
John Maynard KeynesRead
Raising the minimum wage allows business people to stop thinking about workers simply as costs to be cut and allows you to start thinking about workers as customers to be cultivated.
Nick HanauerRead