"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little"
About this Quote
Progress, for Roosevelt, isn’t a victory lap; it’s an audit. The line is built like a moral scales: one side is the already-comfortable getting “more,” the other is the precarious getting “enough.” That contrast is the point. “Abundance” is deliberately lush, almost self-satisfied. “Enough” is stripped to necessity. By framing the measure of national success this way, FDR yanks the conversation away from raw growth and toward distribution, away from bragging rights and toward obligation.
The subtext is a rebuke to the pre-Depression faith that prosperity at the top automatically blesses everyone else. He’s challenging the idea that a booming economy is synonymous with a decent society. In Roosevelt’s hands, “progress” becomes less about expanding the pie than making sure people can eat. That’s a quieter but more radical claim: government should be judged not by the fortunes it enables for the powerful, but by the insecurity it reduces for the vulnerable.
The context is the New Deal era’s political fight over what the state owes its citizens in a modern industrial economy. Mass unemployment, bank failures, and breadlines made “those who have little” impossible to ignore. FDR’s genius here is rhetorical: he doesn’t demonize wealth; he simply refuses to let it define the scoreboard. The sentence sounds commonsensical, even modest, while smuggling in a sweeping standard for policy. If the bottom can’t reach “enough,” the nation isn’t progressing, it’s just enriching itself.
The subtext is a rebuke to the pre-Depression faith that prosperity at the top automatically blesses everyone else. He’s challenging the idea that a booming economy is synonymous with a decent society. In Roosevelt’s hands, “progress” becomes less about expanding the pie than making sure people can eat. That’s a quieter but more radical claim: government should be judged not by the fortunes it enables for the powerful, but by the insecurity it reduces for the vulnerable.
The context is the New Deal era’s political fight over what the state owes its citizens in a modern industrial economy. Mass unemployment, bank failures, and breadlines made “those who have little” impossible to ignore. FDR’s genius here is rhetorical: he doesn’t demonize wealth; he simply refuses to let it define the scoreboard. The sentence sounds commonsensical, even modest, while smuggling in a sweeping standard for policy. If the bottom can’t reach “enough,” the nation isn’t progressing, it’s just enriching itself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|
More Quotes by Franklin
Add to List
