Distribution of Resources Quotes

In the first phase of economic development you have rising inequality.

For it is an essential difference between capitalist and socialist production that under capitalism men provide for themselves, while under Socialism they are provided for.

God must love the rich or he wouldn't divide so much among so few of them.

How could you justify giving Holland twice the amount of money that you gave Belgium? Well, finally, I put it up to them. They said that they couldn't do it; it would destroy them. I said they had to do it. And I finally got support from Hoffman on it.

It is important that there be a uniform, equal citizenry, evenly distributed over the various provinces of the island, and free from extremes in wealth and poverty. His intention, as he phrases it, is “not completely to destroy private property, since this is impossible, but to enclose it within more narrow boundaries, to give it a measure, a rule, a bridle which restrains it, which directs it, which subdues it, and always keeps it subordinate to the public good.

It seems to me that the earth belongs to God who made it and entrusted it to men as a perpetual home. But it cannot have been part of His plan that some men should be ill with overfeeding and that others should die of starvation. No matter what anyone can say they cannot prevent me from feeling sad and angry when I see a beggar crying at a rich man's door.

For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.

I do not object to butchering quite so much if everybody gets a fair share of the hog. But when a favored few get all the ham and pork chops, and the rest of the people get just plain old sow belly, at least the people are entitled to know what they are swallowing.

It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.

You need to look at inequality as a typical condition of modern society.

I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all.

[Speaking to a group of wealthy New Yorkers] A million years ago, the cave man, without tools, with small brain, and with nothing but the strength of his body, managed to feed his wife and children, so that through him the race survived. You on the other hand, armed with all the modern means of production, multiplying the productive capacity of the cave man a million times — you are incompetents and muddlers, you are unable to secure to millions even the paltry amount of bread that would sustain their physical life. You have mismanaged the world, and it shall be taken from you.

Too often in Washington, we only look at the recipient side: How does the budget affect either those who receive or don't receive benefits.

Undoubtedly equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men has made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might--so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good.

In everything, there is a share of everything

The problem is not scarcity; the problem is power.

Negotiations over a shrinking pie are especially difficult because they require an allocation of losses. People tend to be much more easygoing when they bargain over an expanding pie.

You cannot give the ball to Messi all the time.

If you have two coats you have stolen one. We have no right to have more than we need when someone else has less than they need.

Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.

The greatest difficulty with the world is not its ability to produce, but the unwillingness to share.

If A were not allowed his better position, B would be even worse off than he is.

Any society which gives lip-service to the idea of equal opportunity is going to generate jealousy of others who are better off than you are, even if the thing that's in short supply can't be carved up and shared without destroying it.

Fundamentally all social and political questions are economic.

Nature distributes her favors unequally.