Equal opportunity versus equal outcomes. bumper sticker

F. A. Hayek - Law, Legislation, and Liberty "The preservation of a free system is so difficult precisely because it requires a constant rejection of measures which appear to be required to secure particular results, on no stronger grounds than that they conflict with a general rule, and frequently without our knowing what will be the cost of not observing the rule in the particular instance. A successful defence of freedom must therefore be dogmatic and make no concessions to expediency, even where it is not possible to show that, besides the known beneficial effects, some particular harmful result would also follow from its infringement. Freedom will prevail only if it is accepted as a general principle whose application to particular instances requires no justification. … It is because we have departed from the ideal so much further than most people realize, and because, unless this development is soon checked, it will by its own momentum transform society from a free into a totalitarian one, that we must reconsider the general principles guiding our political actions."