Sunday, April 11, 2010

Tough Love from Ben Franklin


Benjamin Franklin on "spreading the wealth" around...

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

After hundreds of years of failed redistribution, the nuts on the left still don't understand these simple concepts.

5 comments:

Linda said...

How true, how true! Where are the wise men today?

The Conservative Lady said...

Ben knew what he was talking about.

DaBlade said...

You get more of what you subsidize for sure. I recently read Ben Franklin's autobiography. Your quote is one of the reasons I suspect that it is called the first self-help book.

RightKlik said...

Linda: Not in politics.

TCL: Human nature has been very well understood for thousands of years. That's why conservative principles work.

DaBlade: http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_wit_self.html

Dapper Dan said...

RK, This is a great quotation. Old Ben sounds like a Tea Party man to me. He states some strong conservative principles in plain practical English.