The Liberals' Mistake (1987)
Context: The liberals were right when they insisted that we had enough food and goods for all of our people. But they did not — and we still do not — know how to distribute those goods in a rational way. We have failed to figure out how to turn this abundance into an advantage. The liberals were also right about labor-saving. If we evenly distributed the work that needs to be done, there ought to be a lot of time left over for everybody to have the leisure that people need. But we have managed to reverse that. Today, a great many people cannot find any work. People are dispossessed and cannot support themselves or their families. Many are homeless. For many others, work has become a rat race: something to be endured, not enjoyed.
Today we are witnessing an impoverishment: the apparent drying up of resources for all kinds of things that are badly needed. We seem to have no money for housing, for education, or for health and social services. And yet we have a deficit, and we are told by candidates for public office that we must cut the federal budget even more. This impoverishment is a mystery.
As quoted in Attorney General and Rebel With a Cause, Dies at 93, By Douglas Martin, New York Times, (10 April 2021)
"How to Get Things Done", Chips off the old Benchley (1949)
“It is strange that many believe they cannot control themselves, but they can control others.”
Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume I, (1999), p. 21
“We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.”
Waldersee in his diary c. 1885, quoted in John C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser and his court : Wilhelm II and the government of Germany
1930s, Message to Congress on Tax Revision (1935)
Context: The desire to provide security for oneself and one's family is natural and wholesome, but it is adequately served by a reasonable inheritance. Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security. In the last analysis such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals over the employment and welfare of many, many others.
In November 2003. breakingnews.ie http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/higgins-mccreevy-must-deliver-tax-justice-in-budget-123560.html
