The Problem of "Equality"

The Problem of "Equality " Joshua Yen, Year 13, Shaftesbury House

Abstract:

In the last issue of the Humanities Harrovian, I provided a powerful deductive case that proved that a belief in the equality of opportunity and equal rights requires the existence of a personal, creator God. The goal of this article is different from my usual style of arguing for a certain conclusion, rather, I want to invoke thought and prompt you to question your ideas about equality. As a result, I will not argue against any specific part of equality. Instead, I will attack the most general notion of equality, the idea that everyone should be made equal. By doing so, I hope to demonstrate that we should not jump to the conclusion that equality is always a good thing—we must keep each of these cases at arm’s length and approach each claim for equality in a case by case manner.

Forms of Equality:

In the past, I have often heard the term “equality” used in a very loose and broad sense. A lot of people argue for equality as something that everyone should strive towards, without even asking themselves what equality actually means.

The first part of my dialectic is to demonstrate that there are more forms of equality than one may think. Instead of merely arguing for or against equality, I just want you to think deeply about your starting point.

To demonstrate this, let me turn to a very common example—equal pay. In the current discourse, the idea of equal pay is often raised, be it about racial or gender pay gaps. Popular culture likes to look at the average gap between two groups and immediately suggest the existence of inequality. However, I’m afraid that this is an oversimplification of the facts. One must further ask themselves—is this disparity due to innate discrimination within the system, or is it a result of other means?

What do I mean by this?

Imagine a world where everyone has equal opportunity, but in this world, all Asian men get paid less than any other group. Is this world possible? If the answer is yes, then we can see that arguing from a certain aspect of inequality, pay gap in this instance, to inequality is justified—there is a more nuanced structure underlying the nature of equality that must not be overlooked.

So what is this structure made of?

In the case of the pay gap, I feel that there is an important distinction between the equality of opportunity and the equality of outcome. The former argues that everyone should be given an equal chance to succeed. The latter, on the other hand, argues that everyone should be given an equal conclusion. In each case, there may exist more forms of equality; however, I think that these two are sufficient as a basis for my discussion.

Problems of Equality Simpliciter:

Upon understanding that there are two important forms of equality, let us discuss the first part a bit more, the idea of equality of outcome. In my opinion, this can be broken down to an even greater degree. To illustrate this differentiation, imagine two worlds, one in which everyone is rewarded equally given they produce the same outcome, and another one in which everyone is rewarded equally for the sake of equality. I will rename the first as equality of reward and the second as equality simpliciter. While I feel the first is an honourable pursuit that is indeed tied to the concepts of equality of opportunity, I feel the second is faced with insuperable problems.

What are these problems?

According to Nietzsche, there are only two ways to gain this sense of equality, “[by drawing] all others down to one’s level… or by [drawing] oneself up with everyone else. ” (Aphorisms on Love and Hate 34-35) I think this is undeniable. To make everyone equal in the broadest sense, there has to be either great destruction (making everyone as ruined as the weak)

or a great construction (to make everyone rich).

While the latter sounds desirable and is indeed what a lot of socialists and communists dream of, in reality, this option is impossible. Just appreciate, for a moment, how impossible it would be to have a society where everyone is as rich as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. An economy cannot afford to have 7 billion billionaires in the world; the existence of the economy can only be developed and sustained with supply, demand and a hierarchy. If everyone was as prosperous as Bill Gates, there would be a great sense of inflation and money would lose its value. Now I am no economist, but I believe that these conclusions are undeniable and undesirable.

Hence, it seems that the only way in which we can achieve equality simpliciter is to bring everyone down via a great destruction. However, this is undesirable as well. Of course, it would sound good for the poor and the weak, who out of their ressentiment, (the idea that the weak are jealous of the strong and this jealousy turns to hatred) want to gain power by reducing the great to nothing. Unfortunately, this would be greatly unfair to the rich, who have worked hard to be there, and would also be a great act of theft. To steal the property of the rich to force them into poverty would be an act worthy of the greatest demagogue totalitarian states of the 20th century.

This form of destruction was embodied by Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany (this was socialist as well) and Communist China, who in the name of the poor, took advantage of this feeling of ressentiment and established themselves as the party of equality. In each of these situations, there was violence and a lack of freedom, which is to be expected given the goal. Wherever there is freedom, there is an opportunity to improve; there is an opportunity to rise above those who are unwilling to work as hard. From this we can come to a simple conclusion and truth: when 1 ever there is freedom, there is inequality.

From this analysis of this form of socialism and equality as a whole, it is clear that there are significant problems of equality simpliciter and we should turn to a more modest and more reasonable form of equality.

Why Equality of Opportunity:

This more modest form of equality is the equality of opportunity. This is the form of equality that I think we should all start off with. To illustrate why this is the case and also what it is, I would like to provide a few examples of it. By doing so, I think that its utility and importance would be quite self-evident and that it would be clear why this works hand in hand with a meritocracy, which is important for the developments of any society. Here I would provide three examples of equality of opportunity: work, education and speech.

Equality of Opportunity in Work:

Under the equality of opportunity, companies are obliged to open their doors to people of all gender, racial and socio-economic backgrounds, providing an equal judgement of all candidates dependent on their competency. The idea of competency is of utmost importance in this form of equality.

Unlike some proposals that suggest we must accept more of the minority groups to ensure equal representation in the workplace, under this view, as long as the most competent people receive the job, then equality would be achieved. For example, if a company had a group of a hundred applicants, half being African Americans and the other half being white Caucasians, the company would not be discriminating or acting unfairly if they accepted 100 Africans or 100 Caucasians as long as those who took the job, were, at the time, most apropos and suitable.

Equality of Opportunity in Education:

Equal opportunity in education follows the same stance as equality in work. Instead of enforcing any “quotas” based on race, gender or other divisions, all choices must be made on virtue and merit. The students / applicants who work the hardest and are most sharp should gain the position, whereas those who are less efficient do not deserve their positions and hence should not acquire these coveted opportunities.

Equality of Opportunity in Speech:

One of the biggest problems of late has been the ever-increasing idea of cancel culture, where one group with privilege and power uses its power to crush the ideas of contrary beliefs of the minority. (Of course, a lot of people like to claim that they are cancelling people to represent the minority, but such reasoning is absurd, as any group with the power to cancel someone must at least be in the majority.) The equality of opportunity in speech is integral in

upholding academic discourse and the development of society, as without the freedom to put forward new ideas, one is caught in the past and is restrained from making progress or contributions to further the development of society. Hence, equality of opportunity in speech is also of utmost importance.

Conclusions on the Equality of Opportunity: As you can see, equality of opportunity is heavily dependent on a meritocratic society. In this situation, those who are willing to put in the effort and are best at their jobs can improve and benefit, whereas those who are unable to carry out their jobs should not be rewarded.

General conclusions and closing thoughts:

This article is not as long as most of my other pieces; however, I think that it is sufficient to serve its purpose. Rather than arguing for a certain conclusion, I have developed a few hypotheses which would hopefully lead you to question your prejudices and develop your worldview and beliefs.

Equality is an important goal when used rightly, but when misused or misunderstood, can lead to unimaginable consequences like the purges of the Soviet Union or the oppression of the Jews and other dreadful acts which were done under the guise of “equality simpliciter” (via destruction). So, to wrap off, I would like to leave you with a word of advice: be careful!