Pius XI Quotes

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

It is unjust to let any starve, when we think it just to limit the wages of the poor, so as they can lay up nothing against the time of their impotency and want of work.

Income inequality is the central problem all the way across the world.

Inequality of income is bad for everyone, not just the poor and the middle class.

To be concerned about inequality is not engaging in class warfare.

I'm very keen that we have this debate about the good parts of inequality and the bad parts of inequality. It's not a one-sided thing.

I don't think equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning in and of itself. I'm not against inequality... if Bill Gates gets another hundred million dollars, it's no skin off my nose.

Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and, unjustly directed, they injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence.

A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.

Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty.

In this, of all the countries in the world, possession of inordinate wealth by individuals should be held as a crime against Indian humanity.

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty.

Progress is not striving for economic justice or fairness, but economic growth.

Poverty is not inevitable. It is a human ill that we can fight if we decide to do so together.

The greatest difficulty with the world is not its ability to produce, but the unwillingness to share.

Income inequity has to be addressed.

Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral.

We have no right to luxuries while the poor want bread.

The only way to have a better world and end poverty is by closing the gap between the top and the bottom.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of 'the Haves' over the human rights of 'the Have Nots' is inevitably called into serious question.

The production of wealth is the result of agreement between labor and capital, between employer and employed. Its distribution, therefore, will follow the law of its creation, or great injustice will be done.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

I think inequality is fine, as long as it is in the common interest. The problem is when it gets so extreme, when it becomes excessive.