The Fantasy of Equality Part 1

Conservatives love liberty. Liberals love equality. You cannot have both. Alexis De Toquesville in “Democracy in America”, probably one of the best political philosophy books ever, describes the tension between the two. When there is pressure towards equality, whether by culture or law, greatness is diminished. He writes that we can either have a society with many flaws but with robust examples of creativity, innovation, and brilliance, or we can have a more equal but stagnant and milquetoast society, a society with fewer spectacular failures but fewer bright spots.  Thomas Sowell, a black conservative economist (There are two! I’ll quote the other one another time.), says, “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs”.

Just as liberals claim to love freedom, conservatives believe in equality too, but their idea of equality is very different. In Sowell’s book “The Conflict of Visions”, (good but a little boring) he explains that conservatives focus on process while liberals focus on outcome. Conservative “fairness” dictates that everyone should have the same rules. A dogma of liberal “fairness” dictates that rules and standards be modified for some because the starting points of opportunity are different. Liberalism is about handicapping society.

By focusing on outcomes, government must forcibly take from others. So what, you say? Ok, but it’s hard to argue you believe in freedom if you are willing to take what’s earned legally to give to somebody deemed deserving just for existing and having less. The problem with focusing on income or other forms of inequality is that there must be judges of who deserves subsidy. Who judges? The good, enlightened liberals, of course. And government. When government sets out to confer blessing, usually in the form of a check or a tax break, it is a process ripe for corruption and influence. So who is deserving? Should we go by income? Ok, but what about those who work hard and those who won’t? What about those who really want a job versus those simply enjoying their unemployment? What about one who works 40 hours a week at $8/hour and one who works 20 hours a week at $16/hour. Is one more deserving of supplementation? How much to give to one and not the other? Wouldn’t that violate the law of equal outcomes? What about an honest, loving, single mother and a drug addicted, child abusing, kleptomaniac, or a hard working but poor man versus a wife-beating gang member? Should the government guarantee the same income? What about an immigrant who takes English classes and tries to assimilate and one who does not? A legal immigrant and an illegal one?

Let’s take this further. Why should rich nations keep their wealth at all? There are many in the world who are poor through no fault of their own. If you make about $34,000/yr., you are in the top 1% globally. The “poor” in the U.S. have microwaves and cell phones and flat screen TV’s. Maybe they should send some money to the real poor people in Bangladesh.

Who truly is more disadvantaged?  The hair splitting can be infinite. Liberals focus mainly on income and race but would you say Barack Obama’s children are disadvantaged? (I would but for completely different reasons.) What about white kids with poor, single mothers from a trailer park? What about Will Smith’s children? They disadvantaged? Among African Americans, light skinned blacks often discriminate against darker skinned blacks. Maybe we could have a color chart or cards like paint chips that we could match to faces. Cocoa? 6 points. Espresso? 9. What about African immigrants who never had a history of oppression through slavery? What about a white kid who grows up in a black neighborhood and says things like, “A’ite?”

You might argue that it’s not outcome per se that must be equalized but opportunity. Advantages must be conferred to those who had it rough. Change the starting line instead of the finish line. That makes sense until you actually think about how to achieve that. Equality of income or opportunity or most things as liberals define it is a destructive fantasy. But really, there are a million forms of disadvantage in life. People discriminate based on attractiveness. Do we give affirmative action points for ugliness? People discriminate against fat people. How much weight should we give that (He he)? Do we give extra disadvantage points for people with bad skin? Short people? Surely government should give them a leg up. Squeaky voices? Lower intelligence? Mild ADHD? Bad taste in music? Color blindness? Bad fashion sense? Baldness? Bad breath? Give them mouthwash tax breaks. Certain geographic areas are poorer than others. Should we give extra income to those in rural areas, bad urban areas, the South versus the Northwest and Northeast? What about that rich kid who drove drunk and killed people? He had terrible parents and his lawyer argued he suffered from “Affluenza”. He got probation. Yet, rich or poor, having bad parents truly is a terrible handicap. These are all real disadvantages in life. To focus only on race and income is incredibly arbitrary.

There are some with a sickness who would try to parse these differences. Kurt Vonnegut in his novel “Harrison Bergeron” describes a government with a Handicapper General who does exactly that. In America’s quest for equality, the good looking wear masks, the intelligent must listen to earsplitting noises that impede their ability to think, and the graceful and strong must wear weights around their necks. The gifted are murdered by the government. America becomes weak, stupid, and anesthetized.

The truth is that weaknesses can be as much a catalyst for greatness as a hindrance to success. Great people have come from deeply flawed backgrounds. Winston Churchill’s father was terribly cruel and unloving. Churchill drank a lot but he saved his country. Abraham Lincoln’s mother died when he was young and his father was abusive. Racked with debilitating depression throughout his life, he had to contend with the death of his favorite son Willie and the mental deterioration of his crazy wife while saving the nation. It has been argued by some that the flaws, more so than the talents of great men are often what drive them. How to reconcile that with the notion that disadvantage itself should be eradicated? Read here about Scott Stossel who edits the Atlantic. A successful man by anybody’s standards, he suffers from phobias of small spaces, heights, fainting, germs, cheese (What???), flying, vomiting, and other things.

We don’t know enough why some disadvantaged people succeed and others who have everything throw it all away. Life is hard for everyone, even rich, white women and smug bloggers.