Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on March 14, 2026
… is from page 127 of my late, great colleague Walter Williams’s 1982 book America: A Minority Viewpoint [original emphasis]:
Under natural law, individuals own themselves. From this it follows that an individual has the right to any material goods he produces and to dispose of these goods as he sees fit. But this right is violated when government “redistributes” income. Politicians say that all Americans have a right to food, shelter, and decent medical care. But what they are really saying is that some people have the right to take my money, through government coercion, and give it to others. I would like to know: Under what interpretation of “human rights” do some people have the right to take what another man has produced?
