… is from page 138 of Thomas Sowell’s 2013 book, Intellectuals and Race:
Many people who advocate what they think of as equality promote what is in fact make-believe “equality.” In economic terms, taking what others have produced and giving it to those who have not produced as much (or at all, in some cases) is make-believe equality – as contrasted with real equality, which would be enabling the less productive to become more productive, so that they could create for themselves what they are trying to take from others.
DBx: Yes.
Government policies that hinder the achievement of real equality include minimum-wage legislation (which reduce employment opportunities for the least-skilled in society) and occupational-licensing restrictions (which both reduce employment and entrepreneurship options for the politically unconnected, and artificially raise the prices that consumers must pay for certain goods and services). Another enemy of real equality is government-supplied education, especially at the K-12 levels, where the monopoly privileges of the “schools” and “teachers” (so called) are especially numerous.
