To be a serious citizen, it is useful to identify big things that you really believe. If you rely on news sources that lack historical knowledge and present emotional exaggeration as facts, it is hard to recognize the big ideas hidden within every daily issue. The current conflict between two kinds of equality is such an issue.
Equality Introduced into Politics
Equality was mostly a mathematical concept when John Locke (and others) introduced it into politics during the 1600’s. Liberty was the driving force in separating the USA from England, but political equality also appeared in Enlightenment thinking at the same time. When Jefferson (channeling Locke) said “all men are created equal”, he meant “equal at birth” or “equal before that law”.
A Second Kind of Equality Enters – Stage Left
In 1776, equality meant “created equal” or “equal before the law”, a radical new idea, promoted in a single country which, in the eyes of leaders across the globe, was certain to fail. At that time, liberty and equality (as equal opportunity) were radical, new ideas, and equality (as equality of outcome) seemed unthinkable.
The French Revolution in 1793 had as its slogan “liberty, equality, fraternity”. As we know, the French Revolution got very messy, including vigilante executions of aristocrats with no trials. The French approach to liberty and equality was different from America’s in providing zero liberty or equality for the accused. This has been called an “excess of the French Revolution”, but it was actually a defect in French thinking. The French “citizens” didn’t see a difference between “equal opportunity” and “equal outcome”, and lapsed into an authoritarian form, because equal outcomes required destruction of the rule of law. Pushing for equal outcomes later had similar effects on the rule of law and liberty in Russia, Cuba, etc.
Equality of Outcome – A Popular 19th Century European Idea
Fifty years after the French Revolution, when the industrial revolution had ignited GDP growth in the US and Europe, Karl Marx first started people worrying about equal outcomes. When Jefferson had written “created equal”, nobody thought it would lead to equal outcomes. Inequality of outcome was seen as a normal part of life, like bad luck, or losing at cards. Marx was among the first to say that inequality of outcome was morally wrong, and to seek its elimination.
Since Marx, many political arguments have revolved around a tension between liberty and equality. While equality (framed as equal opportunity) was considered a partner of liberty in America in the 18th Century, equality (framed as “equality of outcome”) became an antagonist of liberty in Europe in the 19th Century.
Equality of outcome began to captivate Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, while Americans largely ignored it (preferring “equal opportunity”) until the “great depression” of the 1930’s. As Euros embraced equal outcomes, Europe economies stagnated, while the USA vaulted from a marginal nation to the greatest economy in the world.
When world economies cratered during the depression of the 1930’s, equality of outcome became much more popular on both sides of the Atlantic.
Equality in the 20th Century
In the 20th Century in the US, Liberals tinkered with liberty to try to increase equality of outcome. Conservatives generally argued against such changes and believed equality of opportunity was the best way to approach equality of outcome.
Libertarians entered the scene in the mid-20th century with economic findings suggesting that equality of outcome would be practically impossible, because of large natural differences among people. Some libertarians, led by Ayn Rand, argued that depriving people of liberty (to achieve equality of outcome) was morally wrong even if it worked. The 20th century featured a lot of debate on whether all people could be made to be the same or whether people were naturally so different that equality of outcome would be impossible.
By the late 20th century, the world had seen Russia, China, and Cuba destroy whole societies by focusing on equality of outcome in preference to liberty and the rule of law. As the 20th century ended, with the lessons of history in their face, liberals and conservatives in the USA began to see equality of outcome as a nice ideal that would never be fully achievable. They were certainly reluctant to copy the failed experiments of Russia, East Germany, North Korea, China, and Cuba.
In late 20th century, Mao Zedong again provided evidence that pursuit of equal outcome at the expense of liberty would destroy a society. Significantly, the new Chinese Communist regime dramatically reversed certain policies in the 1980’s. While it continued to deny personal liberty, the new China allowed some economic liberty and began to worry more about economic growth than equality of outcome.
To end the century, Bill Clinton famously said: “The era of big government is over.” After a century of “big government” failures (highlighted by the complete collapse of the USSR, Clinton was referring to a growing awareness that big government had amassed a poor track record throughout the 20th century.
Equality in the 21st Century
Events in the early 21st Century suggest that the events of the 20th Century were quickly forgotten.
The recent trend toward post-modern, neo-Marxist (also known as “woke”) politics fits into the center of this discussion. The main post-modern, neo-Marxist narrative is all about equality of outcome and claims that white people (and, lately, Jews and Asians) have conspired to run the world and to oppress the brown and black peoples, employing a newly-discovered phenomenon called “systemic racism”, that prevents the oppressed from achieving equal outcomes.
To neo-Marxists, the need for equality of outcome requires bringing down whites (and others who succeed) in a revolution similar to the French, Russian, or Cuban revolutions. Modern leftists increasingly promote neo-Marxist ideas aimed at equal outcomes as “social justice”, and promote violent events such as the 2021 BLM anti-police riots and the 2023 anti-Israel riots. 21st Century progressives, the Democrat party, and the mainstream media generally follow the lead of radical leftists while trying to play down the revolutionary rhetoric of the neo-Marxist New Left.
In the 20th Century, traditional Democrats (unlike new-left or neo-Marxists) were willing to compromise with conservatives and libertarians to preserve liberty, and were not willing to overturn the rule of law and destroy society in seeking equality of outcome. Since the 20th century, Democrats have changed their beliefs.
In the 21st Century, new-left activists condoned the BLM riots which destroyed several cities, and supported the Hamas massacre and torture of 1,300 Israelis. Since these activities can only be described as neo-Marxist revolutionary actions, New Left support of them exposed the revolutionary core of “woke” leftists. Since 2008, Democrats have followed the new-left activists rather closely with most approving of the BLM Riots and some even supporting Hamas against Israel.
Recent Democrat positions seem increasingly to approach or merge with neo-Marxist positions, in that 21st Century Democrats now oppose any measure that would promote freedom of speech, fiscal restraint, economic growth, and rule of law in favor of measures aimed mainly at promoting equality of outcome.
Conclusions
(1) Two centuries of political experiments provide strong evidence that equality of outcome is only achieved by crushing high achievers. Regardless of efforts to provide equality of opportunity, some people will out perform or out accumulate others unless they are crushed.
(2) Political measures that promote equality of opportunity for individuals are morally persuasive and generally consistent with liberty and with the traditional ideals, inclinations, and founding documents of America.
(3) Political measures that promote equality of outcome for individuals are generally antagonistic to liberty and antagonistic to the traditional ideals, inclinations, and founding documents of America.
(4) Studies of human nature provide strong evidence that most people respond better to structured incentives than to compulsion.
Suggestions
Many Americans remember fondly the tight linkage between liberty and equality and have not thought carefully about the conflict between “equality of opportunity” and “equality of outcome”. Liberty and equality of opportunity are embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and are the essence of the American experience that attracts immigrants who flock to this country. Forcing “equality of outcome” on a society is an attack on everything the American experience has come to stand for.
A confusing aspect of today’s political arguments is a profound media bias in favor of certain political agents and labels, and against others. This is likely not a conspiracy, but, rather, the result of media responding to conditioning and incentives. For whatever reason, legacy media are generally in favor of equal outcome measures and against equal opportunity measures.
Objective observers have noticed that people advocating for equal opportunity and against equal outcomes tend to be quickly labeled as far-right and somehow connected with Nazis, systemic racists, and book-burners who want to destroy “our democracy”. Since equal opportunity is a traditional American idea, it is hard to see how it would destroy “our democracy”.
Objective observers (e.g. Thomas Sowell) noticed that equal outcome advocates hardly ever present evidence that proposed measures will actually work. Sowell published much evidence that government interventions since 1965 aimed at equal outcomes did not work. Equal outcome advocates themselves claim that inequality today is greater than ever, yet they argue for more measures of the same kind. Sowell says that equal outcome advocates prefer to congratulate themselves on their goal of equal outcome while ignoring whether their programs actually work.
Final Suggestions:
(1) Before taking sides, look inside each proposed measure and see whether it may be aimed more at equality of outcome or equality of opportunity.
(2) Don’t learn about issues or candidates based on what advocates or media say about them. Go on YouTube and see what they are actually saying themselves.
Footnote
After the US Constitution of 1788, “equality before the law” became a reality for free citizens in the USA, but was not available to US slaves or to anybody outside the US. At the founding of the USA, all other countries were governed by authoritarian Kings, Queens, Emperors, Rajahs, etc. featuring rigid caste systems, and slavery was accepted in every country. There was no other democracy or constitutional republic on earth, and civil rights were non-existent or minimal.
What we now call “civil rights” evolved gradually in England, beginning with Magna Carta in 1215, continuing with the “glorious revolution of 1688”, and culminating in an English Bill of Rights in 1689, but these rights were actually extended only to people in the upper caste of British life (approx. 7%). The American Revolution was fought mainly to extend upper-class British civil rights to all free citizens of the USA.
Current writers like to discuss the fact that Americans in the south continued to own slaves who did not receive liberty and civil rights, as if this invalidates the Declaration or the Constitution. Critics rarely mention that nobody else on the planet had these things either! Neil Armstrong’s walk-on-the-moon quote applies equally to the Declaration of Independence.
The most aggressive recent argument against America was advanced in the NY Times recent 1619 Project, which suggested the USA was “flawed at its founding” because the US economy relied on black slaves for its subsequent explosive success. Weak political arguments usually rely on an ignorance of history, which leaves a trail of facts that can be checked. Credentialed historians, even left-leaning ones, found 1619’s assertions to be empty and based on false data cooked up by NY Times journalists who created 1619 without consulting any credible historians.
Categories: Commentary
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