In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in... — Thomas Sowell

In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

Author: Thomas Sowell

Insight: Life is genuinely unfair in countless ways—some people are born into wealth, others into scarcity; some inherit health, others inherit illness. The real question isn't whether unfairness exists, but what actually fixes it. This quote pokes at a particular blind spot: the assumption that identifying a problem and throwing money at it through government automatically solves it. Here's the tricky part that often gets missed: politicians do have incentives to spend money in ways that help them win elections, but that's not unique to one side of the political spectrum. It's just how power works. A tax cut in the right district before an election? Also political incentive. The deeper insight is that whenever we assume any institution—government, private, nonprofit—will automatically use resources wisely just because the cause is good, we're being naive. Money flows toward whoever controls it, and control creates its own logic. This doesn't mean government can't help reduce unfairness. It means unfairness is complicated enough that good intentions plus a budget rarely fix it cleanly. The real work is asking harder questions: Is this specific program actually working? For whom? And what's the actual incentive of the person spending the money?