A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.
Interpretation
True equality in wealth requires an authoritarian government to enforce it.
Friedrich August Von Hayek argues that a demand for equality in material wealth can only be satisfied by a powerful, possibly authoritarian, government. This statement reflects his belief in the dangers of excessive political power and the implications of trying to equalize wealth through coercive means, which can undermine individual freedoms and the natural order of society.
In practice
In a discussion about government policies on wealth distribution, one might reference this quote to argue against extreme measures.
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.
Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.
It is because freedom means the renunciation of direct control of individual efforts that a free society can make use of so much more knowledge than the mind of the wisest ruler could comprehend.
The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Countries that perceive themselves to be vulnerable can be expected to try to redress that vulnerability - and in some cases, they will pursue clandestine weapons programs.
Ive seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away.
Much as we deplore our condition in life, nothing would make us more satisfied with it than the changing of places, for a few days, with our neighbors.
Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.
I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don't look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community.
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