How wrong must the world order be in which the rich, who live by the labor of the poor, who are housed, fed and clothed by the poor, can think that they are the benefactors of the poor!
A stone falls on a pitcher—woe to the pitcher; a pitcher falls on a stone—woe to the pitcher; no matter what happens, it is always woe to the pitcher.
— The Talmud
If the wealthy can use their riches for the benefit of the poor then it is because the government, by favoring certain people, introduces economic inequality, and thus makes charity necessary. And, under such conditions, does the help that the wealthy provide to the poor even deserve the name of charity, which people love to boast about as if it were a merit?
— Kant
The pleasures of the rich are purchased by the tears of the poor.
Even though we do not steal gold or acres of land, we nevertheless do the same thing to a lesser degree when we do our umost to deceive others or to conceal things from them. When, for example, in our commercial obligations and when we are buying or selling something, we bargain and try to pay less than we should, and take much pains about it—is this not robbery? Is this not barbarism and theft? Do not tell me that you did not steal a house or a slave. Injustice is not determined by the value of what was stolen, but by the intentions of the thieves. The degree of injustice and justice is equal in what is great and what is small. And, just as I call a thief someone who takes another’s money by cutting off their purse, I call a thief someone who keeps for himself a portion of the real price of a good he buys in the marketplace. It is not only the one who breaks into a house and steals something who is a robber, but also the one who violates justice by taking something away from his neighbor.
— John Chrysostom
“Rob not the poor, because he is poor,” says Solomon. And meanwhile this “robbing the poor, because he is poor,” is a most common occurrence: the rich man will always exploit the poor man’s needs to compel him to work for him or to buy what he is selling at the lowest price.
The robbery of a rich man on the highways because he is rich happens much rarer, because it is dangerous to rob the rich, while the poor can be robbed without taking any risk.
— John Ruskin
It is true that wealth is an accumulation of labor; but typically one person does the work, and another accumulates. And that is what the wise people call “division of labor”!
— From the English
Righteous wealth can only exist among people who are self-sufficient. Wherever there are hundreds of poor people for one rich person, as it is in our case, one cannot be righteously wealthy.
