Inequality as poison
a way for equal opportunity and unequal outcome. In theory it is possible to create a world with no ‘purposeless inequality’ and limited economic inequality of outcome with equality of opportunity.
However, the claim ‘. . . will never be eradicated ’ , has an element of realism. Many things are possible but will never happen. This comes down to meaningless predictions of the future: Person A thinks a world of bottle-grown and state-reared babies is likely to occur eventually in the future. Person B does not. It is easier to make predictions about inheritance law and state schooling. So far, no politician has come close to outlawing private schools and inheritance tax. If these are instant vote loser policies, then we could rationally make the claim ‘ they will never ever happen in a democratic country ’ , and since authoritarian countries are by nature unequal (some hold extreme power, most have none at all), equality of opportunity will fail.
Conclusion
It seems we are inclined to be pessimistic about our social progress in regard to racial, gender and other forms of repugnant inequality. However, it is within the realms of possibility that, if we take an active approach to tackling the discrimination and biases that create these inequalities, we can eradicate inequality. The active approach I propose is educating conscious discrimination and biases away. Then removing opportunities for unconscious bias. Next, we canmake beneficial inequality effective by fine- tuning its extent (limiting the wealth of the poorest using welfare and the wealth of the rich using super taxes) and ensuring equality of opportunity through meritocracy. Ending the lottery of life may appear to be impossible to anyone living in the status quo, but Huxley and Plato offer possible opportunities. Whether thesewill happen or not comes down to amatter of opinion about the future. Not all inequality is bad for society: t he motivating inequality of outcome shouldn’t be entirely eradicated rather controlled; bad inequality should certainly be eradicated, and it is possible to do so. Maybe it will be done; maybe it won’t.
I’m hopeful.
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