You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.

The line expresses a classic anti-redistribution argument: reducing the wealth of the affluent does not automatically improve the material condition of the poor. It implies that prosperity for lower-income people depends more on expanding overall production, opportunity, and employment than on “leveling” through punitive taxation or confiscation. As a political aphorism, it frames economic policy as a choice between growth-oriented measures and zero-sum redistribution, and it is often deployed in debates over progressive taxation, welfare policy, and class politics. The quote’s rhetorical force comes from its simple parallelism (“poor richer” / “rich poorer”), which casts redistribution as futile or counterproductive.