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… is from page 95 of the 1976 Vol. II (“The Mirage of Social Justice”) of F.A. Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty [2]:
Any protection of an accustomed [economic] position is thus necessarily a privilege which cannot be granted to all and which, if it had always been recognized, would have prevented those who now claim it from ever reaching the position for which they now demand protection. There can, in particular, be no right to share equally in a general increase incomes if this increase (or perhaps ever their maintenance at the existing level) is dependent on the continuous adjustment of the whole structure of activities to new and unforeseen circumstances that will alter and often reduce the contributions some groups can make to the needs of their fellows. There can thus be in justice no such claims as, e.g., those of the American farmer for ‘parity’, or of any other group to the preservation of their relative or absolute [economic] position.
Today is the 116th anniversary of the birth of F.A. Hayek [3].