Would a good society be an equal society?
Henry Dickie
The question over equality is one of the most important of our time. Many argue that equality is an absolute necessity, while many more say the opposite – that it is to be avoided if a good society is desired. I aim to argue something near the middle: that the desirability and necessity of equality to a good society depends not only on the type of equality being discussed but also on whether or not equality replaces something else (most notably liberty). In doing so I will try to establish whether a good society would be an equal one. Before we begin to decide on the answer to the question, we must establish what we mean by 'equal', for, as I said earlier, there are several types. The first of these is one talked about by Rousseau: natural equality (though he argued about natural inequality, they are two sides of the same coin). Natural equality, which would mean equality of physical and mental qualities between people will not be mentioned further in this essay, as achieving it would be almost, if not completely, impossible, and it would require gross violations of freedom and privacy. As well as this, natural equality would be highly unnecessary in a society with adequate provisions for social equality. In addition to natural equality there is equality under the law, which I will also leave aside, as it is easy to justify as all people who intend to commit a crime, while of sound mind, are equally criminals. And so we come to the final two main types, on which this essay will focus- equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes, which together make up social equality. These two are the most interesting and most debated about, and so form the core of this essay. Equality of opportunity and of outcome are two different, but very closely linked concepts. Equality of opportunity is where everyone has the same opportunity, the same start, and that what happens later is up to them, while equality of outcomes suggests that people
must be made equal throughout their lives. The difference can be illustrated with a simple analogy. Two men are given two fish each. A cat comes and snatches away the second man's fish, leaving him with none. An equalist of opportunity would say that everything is fine, while an equalist of outcome would give one of the first man's fish to the second man. And so we come to the main part of this essay. To decide whether a good society is an equal one we must first establish whether equality would replace liberty, as while equality is regarded as generally a good thing, so is liberty, and there can often be a conflict between them. For example, in the fish analogy, taking the fish and giving it to the second man impinges on the first man's freedom to keep his property. This conflict is often seen in western economies due to redistributive taxation, and in regulation such as labour laws, which can be respectively seen to affect the freedom of the wealthy, and on the freedom of workers and employers. This conflict is impossibly hard to reconcile in the case of equality of outcome, but still occurs with equality of opportunities. For example, the liberty of a parent to pay for a private education for their child impedes equality of opportunity across the child's generation, as some children cannot go to a private school. Another example is in labour laws. These do not seem to be needed to achieve equality of opportunities, as people have the choice whether or not to work for a firm, and yet they can be justified without resorting to equality of outcomes, which itself is far harder to justify, due to its extreme conflicts with liberty (which usually trumps most other concerns). This justification of labour laws using the idea of equality of opportunities, which can itself be justified along similar lines as that of equality under the law, revolves around the idea of power, and of being equally free. For example, consider a poor worker and a large company.
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