These people look upon inequality as upon an evil. They do not assert that a definitedegree of inequality which can be exactly determined by a judgment free of anyarbitrariness and personal evaluation is good and has to be preserved unconditionally.They, on the contrary, declare inequality in itself as bad and merely contend that alower degree of it is a lesser evil than a higher degree in the same sense in which asmaller quantity of poison in a mans body is a lesser evil than a larger dose. But ifthis is so, then there is logically in their doctrine no point at which the endeavorstoward equalization would have to stop. Whether one has already reached a degree ofinequality which is to be considered low enough and beyond which it is not necessaryto embark upon further measures toward equalization is just a matter of personaljudgments of value, quite arbitrary, different with different people and changing in thepassing of time. As these champions of equalization appraise confiscation andredistribution as a policy harming only a minority, viz., those whom they considerto be too rich, and benefiting the restthe majorityof the people, they cannotoppose any tenable argument to those who are asking for more of this allegedlybeneficial policy. As long as any degree of inequality is left, there will always bepeople whom envy impels to press for a continuation of the equalization policy.Nothing can be advanced against their inference: If inequality of wealth and incomesis an evil, there is no reason to acquiesce in any degree of it, however low;equalization must not stop before it has completely leveled all individuals wealth andincomes.
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About Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises was a 19th-century American austrian–american political economist. Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian and American political economist and philosopher of the Austrian school. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the social contributions of classical liberalism and the central role of consumers in a market economy. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Politics — Governance, civic duty, and the structures of power