"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God Bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and paid forward for the next kid who comes along"
About this Quote
The phrase "underlying social contract" is doing heavy work. It's legalistic enough to sound serious, moral enough to sound fair, and vague enough to invite listeners to supply their own version of obligation. Warren's subtext is that markets are not natural phenomena; they are curated ecosystems. Roads, courts, educated workers, stable currency, enforceable patents - all the unglamorous infrastructure that makes a "terrific" factory possible - are the invisible partners in every origin story.
"Take a hunk" is deliberately un-ivy: plainspoken, almost folksy. It translates redistribution into something tactile, commonsense, even neighborly. And "paid forward for the next kid" shifts the frame from punishment to continuity. Taxes become a relay baton, not a confiscation. In context, this is a rebuttal to austerity-era rhetoric that treated government as a drag on growth. Warren flips it: public investment is the condition of growth, and the moral test of winners is whether they fund the on-ramp for whoever's next.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Warren, Elizabeth. (2026, January 16). Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God Bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and paid forward for the next kid who comes along. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/now-look-you-built-a-factory-and-it-turned-into-126339/
Chicago Style
Warren, Elizabeth. "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God Bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and paid forward for the next kid who comes along." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/now-look-you-built-a-factory-and-it-turned-into-126339/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God Bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and paid forward for the next kid who comes along." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/now-look-you-built-a-factory-and-it-turned-into-126339/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.






