"If capital and labor ever do get together it's good night for the rest of us"
About this Quote
The line lands like a barroom punchline, but it’s really a civic warning delivered with a grin. Kin Hubbard is talking about the one “alliance” ordinary people are told to crave - harmony between management and workers - and flipping it into a nightmare scenario. The joke works because it yanks the rug out from under a sentimental story: that capital and labor are natural enemies whose conflict protects the public by keeping each side in check. If they ever “get together,” Hubbard implies, it won’t be for the common good. It’ll be for price-fixing, wage suppression, political capture: a cozy cartel dressed up as peace.
The subtext is anti-romantic and anti-naive. Hubbard doesn’t deny class conflict; he distrusts class cooperation even more, because cooperation is where power gets quiet. “Good night for the rest of us” is folksy phrasing, but it’s also a verdict: when the big players stop fighting, the bill gets sent to bystanders - consumers, small businesses, taxpayers, anyone without a lobbyist.
Context matters: Hubbard wrote in an era of trusts, strikebreaking, and backroom deals, when “labor peace” often meant company unions or sweetheart arrangements, and “reform” was frequently negotiated between elites who promised stability while consolidating leverage. As a journalist-humorist, he’s channeling Midwestern skepticism toward big systems that claim benevolence. The sentence is short, almost tossed off, which is part of its menace: the most dangerous arrangements don’t announce themselves with speeches. They arrive as “agreement.”
The subtext is anti-romantic and anti-naive. Hubbard doesn’t deny class conflict; he distrusts class cooperation even more, because cooperation is where power gets quiet. “Good night for the rest of us” is folksy phrasing, but it’s also a verdict: when the big players stop fighting, the bill gets sent to bystanders - consumers, small businesses, taxpayers, anyone without a lobbyist.
Context matters: Hubbard wrote in an era of trusts, strikebreaking, and backroom deals, when “labor peace” often meant company unions or sweetheart arrangements, and “reform” was frequently negotiated between elites who promised stability while consolidating leverage. As a journalist-humorist, he’s channeling Midwestern skepticism toward big systems that claim benevolence. The sentence is short, almost tossed off, which is part of its menace: the most dangerous arrangements don’t announce themselves with speeches. They arrive as “agreement.”
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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