Friedrich Hayek Quotes

A just wage for the worker is the ultimate test of whether any economic system is functioning justly.

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.

A strong economy is perfectly consistent with concern for equity and economic justice.

Labour’s message then is this: we believe in a strong economy; we believe also in a fair go for all, not just for some.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

I want to be compensated. If I'm working at the post office, and I'm sorting the same mail as the person to the right, and they're making $25 an hour and I'm making $21, I need to know what is this person doing so much better that he's getting $4 more than me. That's just knowing the market and being a smart businessman.

This [minimum wage] legislation, passed by the 81st Congress at its first session, is an important addition to the laws we live by. It is a measure dictated by social justice. It adds to our economic strength. It is founded on the belief that full human dignity requires at least a minimum level of economic sufficiency and security.

We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people. Interesting that we don't have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money NOT helping other people.

The market system rewards me outlandishly for what I do, but that doesn't mean I'm any more deserving of a good life than a teacher or a doctor or someone who fights in Afghanistan.

What does 'economic justice' mean, except that you want something that someone else produced, without having to produce anything yourself in return?

Under ideal conditions, the barrister and the bhangi (sweeper) should both get the same payment.

To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice.

How much more of an injustice is it that people who work get more money than people who don't work?

What exactly is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?

We've got a lot of work to do economically in this country to bring about a more just and fair economy.

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

The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.

The economic illusion is the belief that social justice is bad for economic growth.

For the Sanders supporters, there's a thought that the people who are well off are doing really great, and the system is systematically unfair, and that's a very deeply felt and serious objection to the current situation.

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

Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.

Prosperity can't be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can't be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too.

It's time for the wealthy to pay their fair share before the middle class becomes the forgotten class.- And it's time for the banks to give back what they were given. There are those in politics, particularly those on the conservative side, who can't get enough of telling people that the wealthy one per cent must not be taxed because doing so kills jobs. The real job-killers are corporate greed and political expediency. It's time for working people in Maine and all across the country to take back the American dream.

What the hell is social justice? What sort of fool can imagine income equality as dictated by bureaucrats and government thugs? I dare anyone to attempt to explain those drug-inspired fantasies in meaningful terms.

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.