The more things change...

It is at a time like this, in the face of an approaching economic collapse, that the intellectuals are preaching egalitarian notions. When the curtailment of government spending is imperative, they demand more welfare projects. When the need for men of productive ability is desperate, they demand more equality for the incompetents. When the country needs the accumulation of capital, they demand that we soak the rich. When the country needs more savings, they demand a “redistribution of income.” They demand more jobs and less profits—more jobs and fewer factories—more jobs and no fuel, no oil, no coal, no “pollution”—but, above all, more goods for free to more consumers, no matter what happens to jobs, to factories, or to producers.


--Ayn Rand   "Egalitarianism and Inflation"  1974