George Stigler - Income Quotes

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A proposed principle of legitimacy states that every action set by a legislature represents a social judgment that society is better off for that action. Thus all governmental policies are by hypothesis utility-increasing for the nation. Any costs of (say) a redistribution of income are less than the benefits. National output as presently measured can and usually will fall when a new redistribution of income is instituted, because it is costly to redistribute income. Is this trend in governmental policy likely to be reversed, perhaps by a general movement toward deregulation?

George Stigler

The Principle of Legitimacy tells us that the sum of these deadweight losses is less than the legislature's estimate of the gains from the redistribution of income, but Legitimacy does not tell us that these are desirable transfers, i. e, that one dollar taken from the general consumer and given to a well-paid employee of the merchant marine constitutes a net increase in the utility of the nation. If I challenge this interpretation, all that I will be doing is asserting that George Stigler's tastes are not those of the Congress, and who, besides myself, cares about that? Indeed, even I have become reconciled to the fact that American society does not fully share my preferences.

George Stigler