Leadership Quote by Henry A. Wallace

Wallace’s target isn’t “big business” in the abstract; it’s a specific type of power that profits from scarcity and then pretends it’s simply efficiency. By pairing “monopolists” with “fear” and “distrust,” he frames consolidation as a psychological and moral failing, not just an economic arrangement. Competition becomes the litmus test: if you’re confident your enterprise serves the public, you don’t need to rig the game.

The real jab is the way he welds markets to democracy. Wallace treats “equal opportunity” as the shared promise behind both: a system only stays legitimate if new entrants can challenge incumbents, whether that’s a candidate in an election or a startup in an industry. His subtext is blunt: monopoly power and democratic power do not peacefully coexist, because monopolists will eventually try to convert economic dominance into political insulation. “Secure their position” is the tell. It’s the language of fortification, lobbying, capture, and rules written to look neutral while functioning as a moat.

Context matters. Wallace, a New Deal-era vice president watching the rise of corporate concentration, was also speaking to anxieties about fascism and oligarchy in the 1930s-40s: democracy dies less from a single coup than from slow structural advantages that make outcomes feel pre-decided. “Small and energetic enterprise” isn’t romantic nostalgia; it’s a political constituency. He’s defending the upstart as a democratic instrument, a reminder that opportunity is supposed to be renewable, not inherited or purchased.