Inequality

“ I propose to meet all practical objections that can be raised, and to show that this simple measure is not only easy of application; but that it is a sufficient remedy for all the evils which, as modern progress goes on, arise from the greater and greater inequality in the distribution of wealth—that it will substitute equality for inequality, plenty for want, justice for injustice, social strength for social weakness, and will open the way to grander and nobler advances of civilization. ”

“ I conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I call natural, or physical inequality, because it is established by nature, and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other which may be termed moral, or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common consent of mankind. ”

“ Then, if inequality of conditions is a necessary evil, so is isolation, for society and inequality are incompatible with each other. Then, if society is the true condition of man's existence, so is equality also. ”

“ Besides, even in the same kind of work, nominal equality of labour would be so great a real inequality, that the feeling of justice would revolt against its being enforced. All persons are not equally fit for all labour; and the same quantity of labour is an unequal burthen on the weak and the strong, the hardy and the delicate, the quick and the slow, the dull and the intelligent. ”

“ So that here, touching the highest part of men, their soul, there is introduced, by Christianity itself, a distinction, an inequality—the distinction, the inequality between the "saved" and the "lost." Men are equal inasmuch as they are all damned, but they are not equal inasmuch as they are not all redeemed.
Gazing at man, however, no longer through the eyes of the serpent, shall we not be bound to find, if we look high enough, distinction, superiority, inferiority, valuation? The dogma of equality is itself a device to evade valuation. ”

“ Here, then, was a society adopting inequality, not as the natural product of property, descent and merit, but as its very foundation,—a society, therefore, more aristocratically constituted than those of feudal times. ”

“ Having proved that the inequality of mankind is hardly felt, and that its influence is next to nothing in a state of nature, I must next show its origin and trace its progress in the successive developments of the human mind. ”

“ But if from the remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless experiments of government which the wit of man has devised, still this inequality is ever found to exist, may we not suspect that there is something in the very principles of our nature to which that inequality is necessary and essential? ”

“ The wrong that produces inequality; the wrong that in the midst of abundance tortures men with want or harries them with the fear of want; that stunts them physically, degrades them intellectually, and distorts them morally, is what alone prevents harmonious social development. ”

“ This inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause of society's embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of Nature; or, in the division of the products of labor and the soil, may there not have been some error in calculation? Does each laborer receive all that is due him, and only that which is due him? In short, in the present conditions of labor, wages, and exchange, is no one wronged?—are the accounts well kept?—is the social balance accurate? ”

“ And to him who will use his mind as the wise man recommends, surely it is easy to see that our shortcomings in civilization are due to our inequality; or, in other words, that the great inequality of classes and property, which came to us from the Middle Age and which we maintain because we have the religion of inequality, that this constitution of things, I say, has the natural and necessary effect, under present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class. ”

“ The plain matter of fact is, that there ever has been, and there must be, great inequality in the condition of men. The rich and the poor, the powerful and the feeble, the daring and the timid, are every where found among men. In all communities there are superiors and inferiors, the successful and the unsuccessful, the leaders and the led. ”

“ I have always held that there is a certain social ideal of inequality as well as of equality, and if I have found the people of this country, as a general thing, quite equal to each other, I am not sure that I am prepared to go so far as to say that, as a whole, they are equal to—excuse that dreadful blot! ”

“ Lucan, i. 376 From great inequality of fortunes and conditions, from the vast variety of passions and of talents, of useless and pernicious arts, of vain sciences, would arise a multitude of prejudices equally contrary to reason, happiness and virtue. We should see the magistrates fomenting everything that might weaken men united in society, by promoting dissension among them; everything that might sow in it the seeds of actual division, while it gave society the air of harmony ”

“ I am merely attempting to set forth the general fact that as a social development goes on, inequality tends to establish itself, and not to point out the particular sequence, which must necessarily vary with different conditions. ”

“ II. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists among the people of the same community are three in number:—inequality in wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? ”

“ What inequality there is in the present social order! Some working from morning to night without more profit than enough to buy their insufficient food; others receiving the products of the workers in order to enjoy themselves with the superfluous. Why is this so? Are we not all equal? Undoubtedly we are; but society does not recognise it, while some are destined to work and suffering, and others to [94] idleness and enjoyment. If a worker shows that he realises the exploitation to which he is subject, he is blamed and cruelly punished, while others suffer the inequality with patience. ”

“ If men had been equal at the beginning, they would never have risen above the savage. For in absolute equality even the concept of greatness could not have come into being. Inequality is the source of all advancement. ”

“ It follows from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of property and laws. ”

“ Society, then, ought to see that all minority, all servitude, all excess of inequality that may be produced by the fatal effect of the laws of nature or of the social laws, is suppressed or alleviated as much as possible. ”

“ Why, for instance, should it be thought advantageous that one class, now in possession, be completely despoiled to profit another class, which would then take its place? Whether the inequality existed as from the heights downwards or from the depths upwards, would not{81} the results be exactly the same? Is not the supreme power as dangerous in the hands of the many as in the hands of the privileged? ”

“ But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were equal. ”

“ there would inevitably be less inequality, but inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself. ”

“ Though most of them now recognise, like the author of "The Gospel for To-day," that the economic efficiencies of men are in the [Pg 165] highest degree unequal, they propose out of an inequality of functions to produce an equality of conditions. ”

“ It is thus that natural Inequality insensibly unfolds itself with that arising from a Variety of Combinations, and that the Difference among Men, developed by the Difference of their Circumstances, becomes more sensible, more permanent in its Effects, and begins to influence in the same proportion the Condition of private Persons. ”

“ I consider the subject of the following discourse as one of the most interesting questions philosophy can propose, and unhappily for us, one of the most thorny that philosophers can have to solve. For how shall we know the source of inequality between men, if we do not begin by knowing mankind? And how shall man hope to see himself as nature made him, across all the changes which the succession of place and time must have produced in his original constitution? ”

“ Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality. ”

“ Not inequality of goods,—for the majority of voices and fists on the part of the poor balances in the scale the power of the rich,—but inequality of culture, does most to create and distribute the political fly-presses and forcing-pumps. ”

“ Inequality appears to be the divine order; it always has existed; undoubtedly it will continue; all our theories and 'a priori' speculations will not change the nature of things. Even inequality of condition is the basis of progress, the incentive to exertion. ”

“ I could show that among these four kinds of inequality, personal qualities being the origin of all the others, wealth is the one to which they are all reduced in the end; for, as riches tend most immediately to the prosperity of individuals, and are easiest to communicate, they are used to purchase every other distinction. By this observation we are enabled to judge pretty exactly how far a people has departed from its primitive constitution, and of its progress towards the extreme term of corruption. ”

“ All men of sound understanding, and who are capable of reflection, will clearly see that there is not, and cannot be, any such thing as equality. There must, and ever will be, high and low, rich and poor; and this inequality of rank and fortune, in civilized states, is necessary for the comfort and happiness of all. ”

“ Inequality was the price of civilization. ”

“ The two sects glory in laying down as a principle inequality of conditions,—reasoning from Nature, who, they say, intended the inequality of capacities. They boast only of one thing; namely, that their political system is so perfect, that the social inequalities always correspond with the natural inequalities. ”

“ The impossibility of equality among men; the good which arises from their inequality; the compensating circumstances in different states and fortunes; the honorableness of every man who is worthily filling his appointed place in society, however humble; the proper relations of poor and rich, governor and governed; the nature of wealth, and mode of its circulation; the difference between productive and unproductive labor ”