ECONOMIC THEORIES & ISSUES
EQUALITY AND THE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
[T]he doctrine of equality...means government by the poor and payment by the rich.
ACTON, LORD JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG, Lectures on the French Revolution: Robespierre, MacMillan and Co., Limited, London (1910)
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.
The French love equality, they care little for liberty.
BONAPARTE, NAPOLEON, quoted in LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter XXIV
The economic egalitarianism of the liberal ideology implies ... the reduction of Westerners to hunger and poverty.
BURNHAM, JAMES, Suicide of the West
The critics are right when they say that under free enterprise goods are not equally distributed among the populace. Where there is private property, not everyone has the same amount of property. If such equality could exist, it would depend upon distributing everything equally and then stopping all transactions or change at that point. It would have to mean, also, the stopping of all births and deaths, for as soon as an imbalance between births and deaths occurred, a new inequality would either exist or an entire redistribution have to take place.
CARSON, CLARENCE B., Free Enterprise: The Key to Prosperity
In no extensive society has there ever been equality of possessions...Give two small children each a toy. One will have his torn up within the hour, while the other may keep his in good repair for months or years. It is so for adults as well; some manage well, work hard, take care of what they have received, others hardly at all. The basic question for an economy and society is not one of the disparity of wealth but of the justice of the arrangement under which it is acquired and maintained.
CARSON, CLARENCE B., Free Enterprise: The Key to Prosperity
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
[I]nequalities of condition, of manners, of mental cultivation must exist, unless it be intended to reduce all to a common level of ignorance and vulgarity, which would be virtually to return to a condition of barbarism.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
[E]quality of condition is nowhere mentioned, all political economists knowing that it is unattainable, if indeed, it be desirable. Desirable in practice, it can hardly be, since the result would be to force all down to the level of the lowest.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
There are numerous instances in which the social inequality of America may do violence to our notions of abstract justice, but the compromise of interests under which all civilized society must exist, renders this unavoidable. Great principles seldom escape working injustice in particular things, and this is much the more, in establishing the relations of a community, enter, to maintain the more essential features of which sacrifices of parts become necessary. If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
The rights of property being an indispensable condition of civilization, and it's quiet possession every where guaranteed, equality of condition is rendered impossible.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
All men are not "created equal," in a physical, or even in a moral sense, unless we limit the signification to one of political rights.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
There are numerous instances in which the social inequality of America may do violence to our notions of abstract justice, but the compromise of interests under which all civilized socieity must exist, renders this unavoidable. Great principles seldom escape working injustice in particular things, and this is much the more, in establishing the relations of a community, enter, to maintain the more essential features of which sacrifices of parts become necessary. If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, The American Democrat (1838)
Income inequality tells us zilch about the only thing that really matters: Are the lives of Americans, rich, poor and in between, getting better or worse?... The study reports that... households in the top quintile saw a 65 percent income gain; the vast middle in the 21st to 80th percentiles saw about a 40 percent gain; and the bottom quintile saw an 18 percent gain. In other words, no group lost ground or even stagnated. So why all this breast-beating? Few, besides vulgar Marxists, believe in the “immiseration of the masses” theory of capitalism anymore — the idea that the wealth of the top few is extracted by exploiting the labor of the bottom many. Burying this notion is one of the enduring intellectual victories of market theorists.
DALMIA, SHIKHA, Poor Grasp of Subject, November 3, 2011
[S]ome gain more than others. But so what? Isn’t an unequal distribution of wealth preferable to an equal distribution of poverty? Is there any amount of inequality that liberal worrywarts would accept? Suppose the CBO had found that every group’s income increased by exactly 65 percent. Would they celebrate everyone’s good fortune or mourn the unwavering income gap? The question answers itself.
DALMIA, SHIKHA, Poor Grasp of Subject, November 3, 2011
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way.
DURANT, WILL, The Lessons of History
Nature seems to work through diversity rather than through uniformity, indeed through inequality rather than equality...It seems to be nature’s theory that mankind, the human race as a whole, will be better served by diversities. than by uniformity and equality.
EMERY, LUCILIUS A., Concerning Justice, Chapter III, The Problem of Rights Continued
It is not inequality of natural powers of body or mind, nor inequality in natural conditions, that excites...resentment...The man of feeble natural powers may envy him of strong natural powers, but he can see that society, that law, is not responsible for that inequality...It is not essential to the preservation of society and the race that such inequalities should be removed, that all men should be reduced to a dead level of capacity, that human nature should be ignored. It is strongly felt, however, that society should not itself create artificial inequalities...The intensity of this feeling against artificial inequalities is so great that men sometimes prefer equality before the law even to liberty.
EMERY, LUCILIUS A., Concerning Justice, Chapter IV, Justice the Equilibrium
He does...feel resentment if restraints are imposed upon him in his pursuit of happiness which are not imposed upon others in their pursuit. Similarly he feels resentment if exemptions from restraint are allowed some others and not allowed him also. Furthermore, he is quick to note any discrimination against himself and prone to imagine it when in fact there is none.
EMERY, LUCILIUS A., Concerning Justice, Chapter IV, Justice the Equilibrium
[J]ustice is the according to every one his right, and that right is such freedom of action in gratifying one’s desires as can be exercised in harmony with like freedom by others. In other words, it is equal freedom, equal restraint.
EMERY, LUCILIUS A., Concerning Justice, Chapter IV, Justice the Equilibrium
If income and wealth is going to be equalized, why would anyone save or invest? Savings and investment just adds to wealth, and wealth is anti-social under a social justice regime of equal wealth for all. Indeed, the only rational strategy for everyone under such a regime is to consume all income and not save or invest anything. For anyone who saves and invests more than others will see that savings and investment expropriated, and anyone who saves and invests less than others will be rewarded with a grant from the government to make their savings equal to all others.
FERRARA, PETER, Fallacies Of Economic Equality That Promote Poverty, July 7, 2011
The only difference between the prosperity of modern industrial society and the subsistence living of cavemen is savings and investment. All the tools and equipment that enable us to produce more than what was enjoyed during caveman days come from investment, made possible by savings.
FERRARA, PETER, Fallacies Of Economic Equality That Promote Poverty, July 7, 2011
A society that puts equality...ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.
Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
GOLDWATER, BARRY, Speech to the Republican National Convention (June 16, 1964)
The choice open to us is not between a system in which everybody will get what he deserves according to some absolute and universal standard of right, and one where the individual shares are determined partly by accident or good will or chance, but between a system where it is the will of a few persons that decides who is to get what, and one where it depends at least partly on the ability and enterprise of the people concerned and partly on unforeseeable circumstances.
HAYEK, F.A., The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 8
The fact that opportunities open to the poor in a competitive society are much more restricted than those open to the rich does not make it less true that in such a society the poor are much more free than a person commanding much greater material comfort in a different type of society.
HAYEK, F.A., The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 8
There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess.
HAYEK, F.A., The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 10
Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality – an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order.
HAYEK, F.A., The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 11
Freedom is a practical ideal - equality is not; for men can make themselves free, but they cannot make themselves equal.
HIRST, FRANCIS W., Liberty and Tyranny
[T]hough it has gone far to deprive its subjects of liberty and property, the Soviet Dictatorship has failed to equalize their incomes.
HIRST, FRANCIS W., Liberty and Tyranny
The rigid theory of equality...has been, perhaps, since the Terror, the most formidable foe of civilization....This theory...was described by Acton as ‘the most dangerous enemy lurking in our path.’
HIRST, FRANCIS W., Liberty and Tyranny
Political equality is conceded to all, and hence arises the erroneous notion of absolute equality. Because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal. When this false and absurd doctrine becomes prevalent, there is sure to be trouble...When the finances become embarrassed, the idea of equality readily lends itself to a confiscation of private property as a method of relieving the mass of poverty. Confidence is destroyed; things grow worse, until perhaps some demagogue, popular either as a military hero or as a mob orator, gets himself proclaimed tyrant.
HIRST, FRANCIS W., Liberty and Tyranny
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
No economic equality can survive the working of biological inequality. This is a hard commonplace truth, disappointing as it may be to those who ride upon plans of Utopia.
HOOVER, HERBERT, The Challenge to Liberty, Chapter III, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934
It seems...inadvisable to adopt systems which although they promise equality in distribution fail to produce the commodities to distribute.
HOOVER, HERBERT, The Challenge to Liberty, Chapter V, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
[C]ivilized society requires orders and classes.... If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law, are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.
KIRK, RUSSELL, The Conservative Mind
It is often said that capitalism—that is, a market economy—is morally obnoxious because its "trickle-down economics" inevitably creates inequality of income and wealth. Now it is certainly true that "trickle-down economics" has that effect. It is also true, however, that if you want economic growth and greater affluence for all, there is simply no alternative to "trickle-down economics," which is just another name for growth economics. The world has yet to see a successful version of "trickle-up economics," an egalitarian society in which the state ensures that the fruits of economic growth are universally and equally shared. The trouble with this idea—it is, of course, the socialist ideal—is that it does not produce those fruits in the first place. Economic growth is promoted by entrepreneurs and innovators, whose ambitions, when realized, create inequality. No one with any knowledge of human nature can expect such people not to want to be relatively rich, and if they are too long frustrated they will cease to be productive. Nor can the state substitute for them, because the state simply cannot engage in the "creative destruction" that is an essential aspect of innovation. The state cannot and should not be a risk-taking institution, since it is politically impossible for any state to cope with the inevitable bankruptcies associated with economic risk taking.
KRISTOL, IRVING, Income Inequality Without Class Conflict, December 18, 1997
Equality of itself, without many other elements, has no intrinsic connection with liberty. All may be equally degraded, equally slavish, or equally tyrannical. Equality is one of the pervading features of Eastern despotism.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter II
Diversity is the law of life; absolute equality is that of stagnation and death.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter II
There have always been people in this country that love government more than freedom. They believe that the government should equalize economic outcomes rather than provide a climate for equality of opportunity.
LIMBAUGH, DAVID, Al Gore -- Government's Best Friend, Townhall.Com, June 14, 2000
If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet, striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality.
MACHAN, TIBOR, Private Rights and Public Illusions
The motives, which at present impel mankind to the labor and pain which produce the resuscitation of wealth in ever-increasing quantities, are such as infallibly to entail inequality in the distribution of wealth.
MAINE, SIR HENRY SUMNER, The Prospects of Popular Government
Mr. Labouchere’s language...like that of many persons who agree with him in the belief that government can indefinitely increase human happiness, undoubtedly suggests the opinion, that the stock of good things in the world is practically unlimited in quantity, that it is (so to speak) contained in a vast storehouse or granary, and that out of this it is now doled in unequal shares and unfair proportions. It is this unfairness and inequality which democratic law will some day correct. Yet nothing is more certain, than that the mental picture which enchains enthusiasts for benevolent democratic government is altogether false, and that, if the mass of mankind were to make an attempt at redividing the common stock of things, they would resemble, not a number of claimants insisting on the fair division of a fund, but a mutinous crew, feasting on a ship’s provisions, gorging themselves on the meat and intoxicating themselves with the liquors, but refusing to navigate the vessel to port. It is among the simplest of economical truths, that far the largest part of the wealth of the world is constantly perishing by consumption, and that, if it be not renewed by perpetual toil and adventure, either the human race, or the particular community making the experiment of resting without being thankful, will be extinguished or brought to the very verge of extinction.
MAINE, SIR HENRY SUMNER, The Prospects of Popular Government
Charles Murray, in his 1984 book on the failure of poverty programs...tried to calculate the grand total of all types of government spending intended to relieve and/or eliminate poverty...That’s $3,800,000,000,000 - enough to give every poor person in America $117,000 to start his own war on poverty. And the spending of this truly vast amount of money...has left everybody just sitting around slack jawed and dumbstruck, staring into the maw of that most extraordinary paradox: You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.
O’ROURKE, P.J., Parliament of Whores
[N]o society can be simultaneously fair, free and equal. If it is fair, people who work harder will accumulate more. If it is free, people will give their wealth to their children. But then it cannot be equal, for some people will inherit wealth they did not earn. Ever since Plato called attention to these tradeoffs in 'The Republic', most political ideologies can be defined by the stance they take on which of these ideals should yield.
PINKER, STEVEN, How the Mind Works
The motive [of egalitarianism] is not the desire to help the poor, but to destroy the competent. The motive is hatred of the good for being the good -- a hatred focused specifically on the fountainhead of all goods, spiritual or material; the men of ability.
RAND, AYN, Philosophy: Who Needs It?
Some people would oppose the program [school choice] on the grounds that it will foster the development of different educational theories and methods in the various private schools. The answer to them is that precisely is one of the program’s goals - that differences, not regimented uniformity, are essential to the progress of a free country - and that equality before the law, not egalitarianism, is one of this country’s fundamental principles.
RAND, AYN, Tax Credits for Education
Many Americans who supported the initial thrust of civil rights, as represented by the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later felt betrayed as the original concept of equal individual opportunity evolved toward the concept of equal group results.
There is...a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.