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Quote by William Graham Sumner

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William Graham Sumner
William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner was an influential American political scientist born on October 30, 1840, and died on April 12, 1910. He was a leading figure in social Darwinism and had a profound impact on American political thought from the late 19th to the early 20th century. more

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“The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.”

MenBelieveHas BeensOrderCommunityPrinciplesConditionsSucceedDemocraticComplexesSupremeSoleDespotismEgalitarianismSupreme PowerOrder To Succeed
Book:Democracy in America
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“In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability.”

MenMatterJobsValuesEnergyTermAbilityLevelsEffortMillionsHe ManMaterialsAmbitionNo Matter WhatFortuneEnormousInventionProportionFactoriesPercentagesPaymentEgalitarianismJanitorNew Inventions
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.”

MenValuesLeftStrongBrainHe ManMaterialsIntellectualWeakAddCompetitionBottomPatternsIntellectHopelessReceivingExploitationPaymentPyramidsBonusEgalitarianismIneptitude
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“Passion for equality blinds the utopian to the fact that society, as a whole, is based on inequality of men in two respects: the inventor, the innovator, the exceptional man creates something new and insures continuous progress; the others emulate his work or merely improve their own lot by benefiting from his creativity.”

MenTwoWholeFactsPassionCreativityProgressInequalitySomething NewExceptionalInventorInnovatorsEmulateUtopianEgalitarianism
Author:Thomas Steven Molnar
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“Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the "unfairness" of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact - in defiance of facts. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top - the aristocracy of non-value.”

MenDoeDifferentFactsLawValuesChoicesSocialEqualUniversalEqualityInequalityFacultyEstablishmentProposeDefiancePyramidsAristocracyAbolishUnfairnessEgalitarianismVolitionInvertedDifferent Choices
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“While under precapitalistic conditions superior men were the masters on whom the masses of the inferior had to attend, under capitalism the more gifted and more able have no means to profit from their superiority other than to serve to the best of their abilities the wishes of the majority of the less gifted.”

MenMeanAbleWishAbilityConditionsMastersMassCapitalismMajorityProfitEqualitySuperiorsInferiorsGiftedSuperioritySuperior ManEgalitarianism
Book:Money, method, and the market process: essays
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“Human life is not some sort of race or game in which each person should start from an identical mark. It is an attempt by each man to be as happy as possible. And each person could not begin from the same point, for the world has not just come into being; it is diverse and infinitely varied in its parts. The mere fact that one individual is necessarily born in a different place from someone else immediately insures that his inherited opportunity cannot be the same as his neighbor's.”

MenWorldShouldHumansPersonsDifferentFactsLife IsOpportunityGamesIndividualBornRaceMarkMereEqualityNeighborHuman LifeDiverseIdenticalDifferent PlaceEgalitarianism
Author:Murray Rothbard
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“I was cleaning out the pigsty at a farm in Wales, where my mother had rented a room, when the results of my final school exam were handed to me by the postman, along with the news that I had a state scholarship to Oxford. I had waited for this letter for so many weeks that I had abandoned hope, deciding that I had failed ignominiously.”

StatesSchoolMotherRoomsResultsWeekNewsLettersFinalsFarmsAbandonedCleaningScholarshipExamOxfordWalesPostman
Author:Nina Bawden
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