Equality and Greatness

Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing;character,conduct,and capacity are everything.Instead of all the workers being leveled down to low wage standards and all the rich leveled up to fashionbale income standards,everybody under a system of equal incomes would find his or her own natural level.There would be great people and ordinary people and little peolpe,but the great would always be those who had done great things,and never the idiot whose mother had spoiled them and whose father had left a hunred thousand a year;and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters,and not poor persons who had never had a chance.That is why idiots are always in favour of inequality of income(their only chance of eminence),and the really great in favour of equality.

收入相當的人除了品性迥異以外沒有社會差別。金錢不能說明什么；性格，行為，能力才代表一切。在收入平等制度下，每個人將會找到他或她正常的地位，而不是所有的工人被劃到應拿低工資階層，所有的富人被劃到應得高收入的階層。人有卓著偉人，平庸之輩和碌碌小人之別，然偉人總是那些有所建樹之人，而非從小深受母親溺愛，父親每年留下一大筆錢之人；碌碌小人總是那些心胸狹窄，品德卑劣之人，而不是那些從未獲取機會的窮人。愚蠢之眾總是贊成收入不平等（他們職能憑借這種機會才能為人所知），而真正偉大之人則主張平等相待，原因就在于此。