QuoteProject
The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.
Thomas Sowell
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote critiques the concept of social justice by questioning who decides what people deserve.

Thomas Sowell's quote challenges the basis of social justice by emphasizing that the act of determining what individuals deserve should not be left to a select few in power. He implies that when politicians distribute resources under the guise of justice, they often exploit vulnerable populations to gain support for their own electoral ambitions, ultimately undermining the true essence of fairness and justice.

Themes

Social JusticePoliticsDeserveFairnessPower

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about tax reforms, this quote could be used to argue against heavy taxation policies.

More from Thomas Sowell

Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.
Thomas SowellRead
Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
Thomas SowellRead
One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.
Thomas SowellRead
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
Thomas SowellRead
The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
Thomas SowellRead
Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.
Thomas SowellRead

Similar quotes

Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
Albert EinsteinRead
Those of us raised in the Christian tradition need to choose to either see God in Jesus or to continue to let the Bible define God. Our tradition says that Jesus is God. Maybe we should act as if we think he is instead of worshipping a book. Maybe we should be brave enough to admit that we are compelled to either become blinded ideologues or we need to forthrightly pick and choose what we follow in the Bible. Most Christians do that anyway, many just don’t admit it.
Frank SchaefferRead
Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting "out there" was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.
Haruki MurakamiRead
People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.
Martin LutherRead
The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.
Oscar WildeRead
We all have thoughts and feelings that we believe are fundamental to our lives but that are better left unspoken.
Adam GrantRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.