Inequality Quotes - Page 2

• Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

  Paulo Freire

  Peace, Honesty, Powerful

  Paulo Freire (1985). “The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation”, p.122, Greenwood Publishing Group

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• You need to look at inequality as a typical condition of modern society.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Typical, Needs, Looks

  "'Lagos shows how a city can recover from a deep, deep pit': Rem Koolhaas talks to Kunlé Adeyemi". Interview with Chris Michael, www.theguardian.com. February 26, 2016.

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• Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.

  Plato

  Plato, War, Cities

  Plato (1977). “The Portable Plato”, p.252, Penguin

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• If you're perpetuating discrimination, you're perpetuating inequality.

  Ellen Page

  Discrimination, Perpetuating, Ifs

  "Ellen Page and Ian Daniel on Creating Gaycation, the State of LGBT Rights in Other Countries, and Watching a Son Come Out to His Mother". Interview with John Horn, www.vulture.com. March 25, 2016.

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• Inequality is the inevitable consequence of liberty.

  Salvador de Madariaga

  Liberty, Inevitable, Consequence

  Salvador de Madariaga (1937). “Anarchy Or Hierarchy”

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• The natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their efforts equal, form the great difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.

  Thomas Malthus

  Law, Two, Effort

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.14, eKitap Projesi

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• ...these things become the norm: that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. In contrast, a ten point drop on the stock markets of some cities, is a tragedy. A person dying is not news, but if the stock markets drop ten points it is a tragedy! Thus people are disposed of, as if they were trash.

  Pope Francis

  Cities, People, Justice

  "Pope Francis On World Environment Day Speaks Of Food Waste, Lack Of Attention To Needs Of Poor", www.huffingtonpost.com. June 5, 2013.

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• An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.

  Martin Luther

  Religious, Humor, Equality

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• We want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.

  Barack Obama

  Children, America, Debt

  Second Presidential Election Victory Speech, delivered 7 November 2012, McCormick Place Chicago, Illinois

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• The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

  Adam Smith

  Powerful, Mean, Causes

  Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.58, Courier Corporation

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• Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, or even armed struggle?

  Slavoj Žižek

  Struggle, Political, Tolerance

  Slavoj Žižek, Slavoj Zizek (2011). “Living in the End Times”, p.5, Verso

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• Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.

  Barney Frank

  Country, Decision, Receiving

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• Education is not the only answer and it's certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it's a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality.

  Robert Reich

  Answers, Response, Solutions

  "Robert Reich Sounds Off On How America Has Failed Its Students". Interview with Danny Feingold, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2015.

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• If we don't rebuild that connection with people we will really find even bigger gaps, because our gap on inequality is not just economic.

  Hillary Clinton

  People, Connections, Gaps

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights.

  Milton Friedman

  Philosophy, Heart, Opportunity

  "Capitalism and Freedom". Book by Milton Friedman, Ch. 12 "The Alleviation of Poverty", 1962.

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• I recognize that globalization has helped many people rise out of poverty, but it has also damned many others to starve to death. It is true that global wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities have also grown and new poverty arisen.

  Pope Francis

  Justice, People, Poverty

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• All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities.

  James F. Cooper

  Mean, Government, Political

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• Growing inequality is a huge problem, and of course is intimately connected to xenophobia and racism.

  Adam Hochschild

  Xenophobia, Racism, Growing

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

  Robert Reich

  Technology, Keys, Understanding

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• Decreasing economic growth and increasing inequality leads to increased uncertainty.

  Nicholas Bloom

  Growth, Economic, Uncertainty

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Wise, Equality, Men

  Dennis v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1950)

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• Idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Work, Income, Favour

  1928 The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

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• Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.

  Pope Francis

  Rights, Economic Inequality, Terrorism

  "Pope Francis: the humble pontiff with practical approach to poverty" by Mark Rice-Oxley, www.theguardian.com. March 13, 2013.

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• A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Work, Men, Sight

  1839 Chartism, ch.4.

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• The growing inequality of wealth and income distribution is both a moral and economic problem. If the wealthy are unwilling to pay more taxes, then this is going to lead to spending cuts. And if you put off the table things like national defense, then you're going to end up cutting more and more out of programs that aid the poor. So, I think there are consequences to this idea that tolerance for inequality requires us to - to just do nothing to make the wealthy contribute a higher share of resources to fund the government.

  Bruce Bartlett

  Cutting, Thinking, Ideas

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