Financial Equality Quotes
The Anabaptists under January Matthys became Europe’s first communists sharing property equally and first and then making property communal. Other religious groups followed the communal property lead.
The smaller states were insisting on an equal vote for each state (colony). However, when it came to paying taxes to the national government, they wanted a head tax so that the total tax was proportional to the population. Franklin, representative from Pennsylvania, one of the larger states, wanted the voting power to parallel the tax burden.
Of all the inequalities that existed in society, the easiest one to overcome with effort is wealth. Race, blood, parentage, even education are not as easily overcome. Of all the inequalities, traditionally Americans have been least offended by that of wealth under the theory that with current effort that can often be overcome. It is only in the latter part of the 20th century where modern economics and sociology have shown that wealth inequality itself is also difficult to overcome, that money as a societal leveler has been conceptually diminished. Sedgwick was the first American to identify the phenomenon that had operated in early America.
