A Quote by Tibor R. Machan

If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality.

Tibor R. Machan

Quote Topics

Absolutely Aims Alone Among Beings Coercion Equal Equality Force Goods Greater Greater Power Human Human Being Human Beings Inequality Kinds Law Material Must Necessarily Order Other People Political Political Power Possess Power Primary Redistribution Requires Should Some Some People Striving Welfare

Quote Author

Tibor R. Machan
American - Philosopher
March 18, 1939 - March 24, 2016

From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Friedrich August von Hayek

The diversity of mankind is a basic postulate of our knowledge of human beings. But if mankind is diverse and individuated, then how can anyone propose equality as an ideal? Every year, scholars hold Conferences on Equality and call for greater equality, and no one challenges the basic tenet. But what justification can equality find in the nature of man? If each individual is unique, how else can he be made 'equal' to others than by destroying most of what is human in him and reducing human society to the mindless uniformity of the ant heap?

Murray Rothbard

The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.

Peter Singer

No matter how much lip service those committed to power (psychopaths) may pay to the principle of equality (empaths), they can never approach their fellow human beings on an equal footing; their relationships with others are defined solely in terms of power and weakness. Therefore, they must accumulate as much power as possible, with the aim of becoming invulnerable and proving this invulnerability.

Arno Gruen

There are some flaws in the assumptions made for democracy. It is assumed that all men and women are equal or should be equal. Hence, one-man-one-vote. But is equality realistic? If it is not, to insist on equality must lead to regression.

Lee Kuan Yew

Most of the things I'm talking about are essential human rights. I don't think it should be political to say that children should be able to have lunch at school when their families can't afford to feed them properly, or to say women should have access to basic health care, or that Muslims deserve equal protection under the law, or police shouldn't be killing black people and getting away with it - it shouldn't be a political thing to say. A lot of people on the right standing behind Christian values should be standing with us, because equality is a basic tenet of Christianity.

Zoe Kazan

Our vulnerability [to ressentiment] is unavoidable (and probably incurable) in a kind of society in which relative equality of political and other rights and formally acknowledged social equality go hand in hand with enormous differences in genuine power, possessions and education; a society in which everyone "has the right" to consider himself equal to everybody else, while in fact being unequal to them.

Zygmunt Bauman

There cannot be enduring peace, prosperity, equality and brotherhood in this world if our aims are so separate and divergent, if we do not accept that in the end we are people, all alike, sharing the Earth among ourselves and also with other sentient beings, all of whom have an equal role and stake in the state of this planet and its players.

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck

The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights... Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race.

Ludwig von Mises

The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human ower to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intelletual and political, of its most worthless class.

Rafael Sabatini

the public sphere is as consistently based on the law of equality as the private sphere is based on the law of universal difference and differentiation. Equality, in contrast to all that is involved in mere existence, is not given us, but is the result of human organization insofar as it is guided by the principle of justice. We are not born equal; we become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights.

Hannah Arendt

I think that we must face the fact that in reality, you cannot have economic and political equality without having some form of social equality. I think this is inevitable.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Listen, there is no equality without the loss of power. Someone is going to have to lose power. That is really uncomfortable for some people to actually think about, but in order for marginalized people to gain power, white, cisgender, straight, people are going to have to lose some and that's just how it is.

Bob the Drag Queen

When people access the use of force for the threat of violence they have, by definition, a new political power. An unwanted political power.

Cody Wilson

The ever-growing power of a soulless political bureaucracy which supervises and safeguards the life of man from the cradle to the grave is putting ever-greater obstacles in the way of co-operation among human beings.