Sunday, February 08, 2009

Quote of the Day   [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader:

Subject: Daschle, Rangel, Dodd and Bertrand de Juvenal

Jonah,

I picked up De Juvenal’s The Ethics of Redistribution and came across this timely quote in the introduction:

“We may well wonder which of these two closely linked phenomena is predominant: whether it is redistribution or centralization. We may ask ourselves whether what we are dealing with is not a political even more than a social phenomenon. This political phenomenon consists in the demolition of the class enjoying ‘independent means’ and in the massing of means in the hands of managers. This results in a transfer of power from individuals to officials, who tend to constitute a new ruling class as against that which is being destroyed. And there is a faint but quite perceptible trend toward immunity for this new class from some part of the fiscal measures directed at the former. [my emphasis]”

The Ethics of Redistribution, Bertrand de Jouvenal, 1952

Update: From a reader:

Hi Jonah
 
Your reader found a very well suited quote indeed. It's a shame he manages to misspell "Bertrand de Jouvenel" twice - and with different misspellings, to boot - in his message.

02/08 02:51 PMShare