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The modern manifestation of this is supply-side economics. Supply-side economics holds that the rich in the United States have not been working because they have too little income. So, by taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich, we increase effort and stimulate the economy. Can we really believe that any considerable number of the poor prefer welfare to a good job? Or that business people-corporate executives, the key figures in our time-are idling away their hours because of the insufficiency of their pay? This is a scandalous charge against the American businessperson, notably a hard worker. Belief can be the servant of truth-but even more of con venience.
這一觀點的現代表現形式是供應經濟學。供應經濟學認為美國的富人不再堅持工作是因為他們的收入太少。所以，把援助窮人的錢給富人可以增加工作積極性、刺激經濟。難道我們真的認為大多數窮人寧愿要福利而不愿要一份好工作？或者認為那些商人—企業經理人員，那些當今時代的關鍵人物——真的因為工資低而游手好閑，虛度時光？這簡直是對美國商人特別勤奮的人的無恥的誹謗。信念可以是真理的仆人，但更多的情況下，只是一時之需。
The fourth design for getting the poor off our conscience is to point to the presumed adverse effect on freedom of taking responsibility for them. Freedom consists of the right to spend a maximum of one's money by one's own choice, and to see a minimum taken and spent by the government. (Again, expenditure on national defense is excepted.) In the enduring words of Professor Milton Friedman, people must be "free to choose."
第四種使我們不為窮人的存在而內疚的方案指出，如果政府替窮人承擔責任，可能會對自由產生不利的影響。自由包括人們有權利最大限度地自由支配自己的錢，讓政府最低限度地拿走并支配他們的錢。（強調一下，花在國防上的錢除外。）正如彌爾頓·弗里德曼教授那句久為流傳的名言，人們應該“自由選擇”。
This is possibly the most transparent of all of the designs; no mention is ordinarily made of the relation of income to the freedom of the poor. (Professor Friedman is here an exception; through the negative income tax, he would assure everyone a basic income.) There is, we can surely agree, no form of oppression that is quite so great, no construction on thought and effort quite so comprehensive, as that which comes from having no money at all. Though we hear much about the limitation on the freedom of the affluent when their income is reduced through taxes, we hear nothing of the extraordinary enhancement of the freedom of the poor from having some money of their own to spend. Yet the loss of freedom from taxation to the rich is a small thing as compared with the gain in freedom from providing some income to the impoverished. Freedom we rightly cherish. Cherishing it, we should not use it as a cover for denying freedom to those in need.
這也許是所有方案中最清楚不過的了：通常沒有人提及收入和窮人的自由之間的關系。（弗里德曼教授在這里是個例外，他認為通過繳納所得稅可以保障每個人的最低收入）我們完全可以同意，沒有哪種壓迫形式比身無分文更厲害，也沒有哪種對思想和行動的束縛比一無所有更全面徹底。盡管我們聽到很多關于稅收造成的收入減少給富人的自由權利帶來種種限制，卻沒聽說窮人有可支配的錢而使他們的自由大幅度地增加。實際上富人稅收失去的自由與窮人獲得一些收入所得到的自由不可同日而語。我們珍惜自由是對的。正因為我們珍惜自由，我們就不能以此為借口，不給最需要自由的人自由。
