Daily Inspiration Quote by Ralph Chaplin

Chaplin’s line is built like a legal aphorism and lands like an accusation: in a system supposedly governed by rules, power doesn’t just evade law - it authors it. The symmetry is the point. “Make” and “break” are paired to suggest that legislation and lawlessness are not opposites in corporate America; they’re complementary tools. Then comes the clincher: “with as little impunity.” He twists the expected phrasing (as much impunity) into a colder claim - that punishment is so rare it barely registers either way. If you can write the rules, consequences become optional.

The intent is agitational, not merely descriptive. Chaplin, a labor activist and Wobbly-era writer, is speaking from a period when strikebreaking, blacklists, and company power were not conspiracy theories but everyday infrastructure. Courts issued injunctions against unions with machine-like efficiency; corporations shaped regulatory regimes through lobbying, patronage, and sheer economic leverage. “Big Business” is capital personified, treated as a political actor with the agility of a street criminal and the respectability of a legislator.

Subtext: democracy is being hollowed out by procedural legitimacy. Chaplin isn’t alleging that laws don’t exist; he’s warning that legality can be manufactured to launder exploitation. The line works because it refuses moral melodrama. It’s blunt, almost bored, the way you sound when corruption has become routine. That flatness is its menace: if impunity is constant, outrage stops being enough, and organizing becomes the only remaining verb.