… is from page 81 of the late Peter Bauer’s essay “Ecclesiastical Economics: Envy Legitimized,” which is Chapter 5 of Bauer’s superb 1984 book, Reality and Rhetoric: Studies in the Economics of Development:
The notion that the incomes of the more prosperous have somehow been achieved at the expense of the less prosperous has had a long and disastrous history. In its duration and consequences it is perhaps the most pernicious of all economic misconceptions.
DBx: Indeed.
This misconception continues to haunt even modern-day America. From “democratic socialists” such as Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani to “economic nationalists” such as Donald Trump and Oren Cass, the fallacy continues to be spread that the incomes of high-income earners comes largely at the expense of lower-income earners.
