Quotes About Inequality

know for a fact that if we did as many drug searches of rich white schools as we do poor black ones, there'd be an outcry about our "lack of discretion." It's tricky on both sides.

Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away Ã¢â'¬â€œ you may put money in the pocket of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way.

You may, by the arbitrary and sterile act of Government,' he said, 'for, remember, Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away Ã¢â'¬â€œ you may put money in the pocket of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way.'67 He

There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. (Warren Buffett, estimated 'worth' $44 billion, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, quoted in the New York Times, 26 November 2006)1

Stealing to eat ain't criminal—stealing to be rich is.

That's Manhattan today—all the money goes up top, while the infrastructure wastes away from neglect. The famous skyline is a cheap trick now, a sleight-of-hand to draw your eye from the truth, as illusory as a bodybuilder with osteoporosis.

The whole concept of government is corrupt, Mr Turnhouse. It is not for us to judge those who habitually inform us they are our betters.

religion is for the poor, not the rich and powerful.

One sees all sorts of things when one travels. Two peasants kill each other over a field which, the following day, will be trampled flat by two counts and their retinues trying to kill each other off.

So you've got the honest truth and faithful history of a world where he who shatters the skulls of others most efficiently and swells women's bellies fastest, reigns.

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets.

What would the daughters of the rich do with themselves if the poor ceased to exist?

The rich can afford to be virtuous, the poor must shift as best they can.

One of Sade's cruellest lessons is that tyranny is implicit in all privilege. My freedom makes you more unfree, if it does not acknowledge your freedom, also.

Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.

Poor people, people of color - especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education.

Regarding check-cashing places): It's hitting me how poor this really is: I'm standing in a long line to pay someone to give me my pay. So, technically, they get paid before I do, and it's my damn check.

What decides where we are born and into what kind of life and why?

Averages are no consolation to those who have been left behind.

To worry about these consequences of extreme inequality has nothing to do with being envious of the rich and everything to with the fear that rapidly growing top incomes are a threat to the wellbeing of everyone else.

This book is about the endless dance between progress and inequality, about how progress creates inequality, and how inequality can sometimes be helpful—showing others the way, or providing incentives for catching up—and sometimes unhelpful—when those who have escaped protect their positions by destroying the escape routes behind them.

If democracy becomes plutocracy, those who are not rich are effectively disenfranchised. Justice Louis Brandeis famously argued that the United States could have either democracy or wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but not both. The political equality that is required by democracy is always under threat from economic inequality, and the more extreme the economic inequality, the greater the threat to democracy.

Globalization gives workers in Asia better access to rich-country markets than ever before, and they can do many of the jobs that used to be done in the rich countries, even without being able to migrate. If this happens on a large scale, Asian wages will rise, and American and European wages will fall, narrowing earnings inequality in the world as a whole. The