“If somebody prefers an income distribution more favorable to the poor for the sole reason that he is poor himself, this can hardly be considered as a genuine value judgment on social welfare.”

— John Harsanyi

Harsanyi, J. C. (1953). "Cardinal Utility in Welfare Economics and in the Theory of Risk-taking". J. Polit. Economy 61 (5): p. 434

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If somebody prefers an income distribution more favorable to the poor for the sole reason that he is poor himself, this…" by John Harsanyi?

John Harsanyi 12

hungarian economist 1920–2000

Related quotes

“Christ himself was poor… And as he was himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 2, member 3.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part II

“Now a value judgment on the distribution of income would show the required impersonality to the highest degree if the person who made this judgment had to choose a particular income distribution in complete ignorance of what his own relative position… would be within the system chosen. This would be the case if he had exactly the same chance of obtaining the ﬁrst position (corresponding to the highest income) or the second or the third, etc. up to the last position (corresponding to the lowest income) available within that scheme.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

Harsanyi, J. C. (1953). "Cardinal Utility in Welfare Economics and in the Theory of Risk-taking". J. Polit. Economy 61 (5): 434–5.

“The important thing is not the amount of welfare, it is that there should be a maximum of love among men. The act of helping is the direct and adequate expression of love, not its meaning or “purpose.” Its meaning lies in itself, in its illumination of the soul, in the nobility of the loving soul in the act of love. Therefore nothing can be further removed from this genuine concept of Christian love than all kinds of “socialism,” “social feeling,” “altruism,” and other subaltern modern things. When the rich youth is told to divest himself of his riches and give them to the poor, it is really not in order to help the “poor” and to effect a better distribution of property in the interest of general welfare. Nor is it because poverty as such is supposed to be better than wealth. The order is given because the act of giving away, and the spiritual freedom and abundance of love which manifest themselves in this act, ennoble the youth and make him even “richer” than he is.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), p. 93

“Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!”

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) Poet and historian

To the Countess of Cumberland. Stanza 12, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“The considered professional judgment of the Air Force is that the traditional outfitting of personnel in standardized uniforms encourages the subordination of personal preferences and identities in favor of the overall group mission.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986) (majority opinion); the ruling upheld the military's prohibition of a Jewish officer from wearing a yarmulke indoors while in uniform.
Judicial opinions