You say that that you believe many
people in America agree,
and I believe in your definition
of freedom
freedom from coercion and I agree with
you
but I also believe that many people in
America believes in a different
kind of freedom
and that is freedom to well-being, a
certain level of standards for housing
at a good price, education et cetera.
The other thing I want to say is is that
the system has built into it
the poor remain poor, and the rich remain
rich,
and that is an externality of the system.
It is not built into the system at all
it has never been true, it's simply false.
If you look at the evidence, there is an
enormous amount of mobility
from one class to the other. In fact,
there used to be a saying
three generations from shirt sleeves to
shirt sleeves,
which reflected exactly the opposite effect.
No, it simply is not built into the
system, on the contrary, there's a great
deal of mobility within generations,
and between generations, and we shouldn't
argue on the basis of
false factual premises.
That mobility...well let me continue,
because I'm not sure it
really has an effect on the question
(stammers) because
it is not immediately easy to become
in the wealthy class. There are certain
parts of the system which make that
virtually impossible for the real person.
Now, I also believe that this freedom too
represents...
represents the belief in equality
as as opposed to liberty, and I wonder
is it possible to build the system
based on this equality which I believe
that many people agree in,
and would not be willing to sacrifice
to the liberty of freedom problem. Let
me... I'm not going to be able to give a
full answer your question, 'cause you've asked
a very, very complex question, and
so you're going to have to pardon me
if I am a little dogmatic, but I
only want to suggest that the statements I'm making
are not without some thought and reason
behind them.
In my opinion, a society that aims for
equality before liberty
will end up with neither equality nor liberty.
(applause)
And the society that aims first for
liberty will not end up with equality,
but it will end up with a closer approach
to equality
than any other kind of system that has
ever been developed.
Now, that conclusion is based both
on evidence from history across history
and also, I believe, on reasoning which if
you try to follow through the implications
of aiming first at equality,
will become clear to you. You can only aim
at equality by giving some people
the right to take things from others.
And what ultimately happens when you aim at equality
is that A & B decide what C shall do for D,
except that they take a little bit of a
commission off on the way.
(laughter and applause)
