Quotes for the day From FA Hayek and PJ O'Rourke bring a year-end message about envy and social justice.
Quoting the economist, Anthony de Jasay quoting Hayek.
"No effort to make society drabber will make it drab enough to relieve envy. Hayek,invoking Mill, pleads that if we value a free society, it is imperative 'that we not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it.. as the most anti-social and evil of all passions' "
PJ O'Rourke, whose scholarly credentials include having actually read Smith 's Wealth on Nations in the original English, has this to say about the envy and coveting things:
"The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want
redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more
government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less
freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell."
References:
Page 198. The State, Anthony de Jasay
An Alternative Inaugural Speech" (18 January 2005) by PJ O'Rourke
No comments:
Post a Comment