Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

The concentration of wealth in the hands of the few threatens the ability of ordinary people to raise their voices and have a say over how our societies are run.

Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.

I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.

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

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.

If the upper classes, through their political representatives, pass legislation that diminishes the income of the middle class and reduces services to the poor and further enrich the affluent, this is not class warfare. But if the middle class and the poor, and their representatives, complain that this is unfair, that is class warfare. So say some of our politicians who oppose class warfare.

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

Political power is now widely diffused; and whatever may be the evils of democracy, this good has come of it, that it has forced men to open their eyes to the misery of the masses, and to inquire more zealously as to the possibility of a better distribution of wealth.

The possession of wealth does not confer upon the wealthy the right to take advantage of the less fortunate.

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.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

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.

If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for them and their children, that puts democracy at risk.

The messenger matters. When people of modest means complain about inequality, it usually gets written off as class warfare, but when billionaires complain, the problem is redefined.

The men of middling property and poor men can never be safe in a mixed representation with the men of over-grown property.

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

No one should have more than five times the wealth of the poorest person.

It is the unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few ...

We are undemocratic, then, in our religion, as is proved by our efforts to “raise” the poor.

The real threat to the democracy is the half a nation in poverty.

If you have more rich people and more poor people and fewer people in the middle, what you lose is democracy.

For the good of Spain, I should like there to be rather fewer rich people and rather fewer poor.

It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is the fact that the rich people of this country -- and by rich people I mean the super-rich -- will not allow us to solve the problems, or rather the one little problem that is afflicting this country, because in order to cure all of our woes it is necessary to scale down the big fortunes, that we may scatter the wealth to be shared by all of the people.

History shows that when you have continuing income inequality it is an invitation to class conflict.