Talk about how various people have been “winners” in “the lottery of life” or have things that others don’t have just because they “happen to have mo… - Thomas Sowell

" "

Talk about how various people have been “winners” in “the lottery of life” or have things that others don’t have just because they “happen to have money” is part of the delegitimizing of property as a prelude to seizing it.
Luck certainly plays a very large role in all our lives. But we need to be very clear about what that role is. Very few people just “happen” to have money. Typically, they have it because their fellow human beings have voluntarily paid them for providing some goods or services, which are valued more than the money that is paid for them. It is not a zero-sum game. Both sides are better off because of it — and the whole society is better off when such transactions take place freely among free and independent people.
Who can better decide the value of the goods and services that someone has produced than the people who actually use those goods and services — and pay for them with their own hard-earned money?
Luck may well have played a role in enabling some people to provide valuable goods and services. Others might have been able to do the same if they had been raised by better parents, taught in better schools or chanced upon someone who pointed them in the right direction. But you are not going to change that by confiscating the fruits of productivity. All you are likely to do is reduce that productivity and undermine the virtues and attitudes that create prosperity and make a free society possible.

English
Collect this quote

About Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist and political commentator. He taught economics at Cornell University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and since 1980 at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is currently Senior Fellow.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Thomas Sowell

One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.

Try QuoteGPT

Chat naturally about what you need. Each answer links back to real quotes with citations.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

Loading...