Daily Inspiration Quote by Will Rogers

Capitalism loves a principle until someone else uses it better. Will Rogers, the cowboy-philosopher of American entertainment, nails that hypocrisy with a grin sharp enough to draw blood: when your competitor undercuts you, it becomes a moral crime ("dumping"); when you do it, it’s a triumph of modern industry ("mass production"). The joke works because it exposes how economic language isn’t neutral description but branding - a PR costume draped over the same behavior depending on who benefits.

Rogers was writing from a moment when America was industrializing fast, consolidating power into big firms, and debating tariffs, antitrust, and "fair" trade. The term "dumping" carried the whiff of foreign threat and market sabotage, a handy way to turn price competition into a patriotic panic. "Mass production", by contrast, was the shiny gospel of Henry Ford-era efficiency: lower prices as proof of progress, not aggression. Rogers collapses the distance between those words and reveals the double standard underneath: the winner gets to name the story.

The subtext is less about economics than about American self-justification. We don’t just want to win; we want our winning to feel ethical, even inevitable. Rogers lets the audience laugh at that reflex without demanding a lecture. In 23 words, he sketches a whole media ecosystem of spin, where virtue is often just market share with better copy.