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.
ARISTOTLE
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.
BASTIAT, FREDERIC, The
Law
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.
CHURCHILL, WINSTON
[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,
he 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)
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
A society that puts
equality...ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.
FRIEDMAN, MILTON
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.
HOFFER, ERIC
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.
JEFFERSON, THOMAS
[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.
SOWELL, THOMAS
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.
TOCQUEVILLE, ALEXIS DE,
Democracy in America, Chapter III