… is from pages 108-109 of Thomas Sowell’s 2023 book, Social Justice Fallacies (original emphasis):
Arguing as if some people’s high incomes were deducted from some fixed or predestined total income – leaving less for others – may be clever. But cleverness is not wisdom, and artful insinuations are no substitute for factual evidence, if your goal is knowing the facts. But, if your goals are political or ideological, there is no question that one of the most politically successful messages of the twentieth century was that the rich have gotten rich by taking from the poor.
Arguing as if some people’s high incomes were deducted from some fixed or predestined total income – leaving less for others – may be clever. But cleverness is not wisdom, and artful insinuations are no substitute for factual evidence, if your goal is knowing the facts. But, if your goals are political or ideological, there is no question that one of the most politically successful messages of the twentieth century was that the rich have gotten rich by taking from the poor.DBx: Before the advent of capitalism, the rich generally did get rich at the expense of others. One of the many excellent features of capitalism is that it reversed this ages-old reality: Under capitalism, the rich get rich only by enriching others – and the more someone under capitalism enriches others, the richer that someone becomes.
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