I am against equality as an overarching ethical framework. That is, I don’t judge the desirability of a social institution, or code of conduct, exclusively, or even primarily, in terms of whether it conforms to an egalitarian standard. In plain language, equality is near the bottom of the list what I care about, with one really big exception - political equality.
The beginning of my disagreement is that equality is not the same as well-being. Consider the following examples:
Two people are chilling out in a cave without any modern technology.
One person lives in a randomly selected apartment in Washington, DC with an average level of wealth for a US citizen and the other person lives in the White House as the president.
Two people living in North Korea with an average level of wealth and comfort for that country.
Now, I ask you to rank them in terms of what you think is good. My guess is that you’d probably choose #2 (DC residents), then #1 (cave people) and then #3 (North Koreans). Notice that the equal situations lag far, far behind the radically unequal world of the DC residents. Thus, it just can’t be the case the equality trumps all else.
Here is a follow up question - what drives the ordering? The DC residents have wealth and ample personal freedom compared to the cave people and the North Koreans. The cave people have freedom because they leave each other alone. The North Koreans have neither wealth nor freedom.
Philosophers know this argument well - it’s called the “levelling down” argument against egalitarianism. If X and Y have unequal money, bankruptcy will make both perfectly equal. You may or may not find this argument decisive, but it reveals a real problem with raw egalitarianism. What most of us find desirable - wealth, safety, friendship, beauty - is simply different than equality. There is something perverse in throwing out all the good things just make everybody equal according to some metric. At some point, you simply need to admit there is more to life than equality.
Another issue I have with many forms of egalitarianism is that advocates often don’t make a distinction between good and bad forms of inequality. In other words, we should be disgusted with the White supremacist and the antisemite. Why? These status inequalities are not earned. They are created so that a majority can bully, harm, or even murder some targeted group of people.
Still, there seem to be many forms of inequality that appear highly desirable. For example, if someone spends extra time and effort to learn chemistry and become a doctor and they earn status and extra income, that does not seem a priori horrible. What about entertainment? Do we all need to watch the same singers and actors in equal amount? Nope, it seems acceptable to create inequality in the arts.
You may quibble with specific examples, but the underlying point is solid. Sometimes inequality is perfectly fine, and even desirable. A lot of egalitarianism misses this point as well.
There is one form of inequality that I do worry about - political inequality. The reason is actually quite simple: states have a monopoly on legitimate violence and if you systematically reduce the voice, or stake, of people in government, there’s a good chance the state will use their force to repress an excluded group. Even then, I am still wary of raw political egalitarianism. People can have an equal vote yet vote for atrocious policy. My interest in political access is really just an attempt to pursue well-being for the widest range of people by slowing down the majority’s ability to do what it wants.
Bottom line: I care about well-being, not equality, and exclusive focus on equality leads you down dark roads. Instead, we need to think about what kinds of inequalities are desirable and which should be rejected.
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I think there is a difference between equality and equal outcomes. To me, it sounds like you're against equal outcomes, not equality. Equality means that your ethnicity, gender, and other factors do not inhibit you. For example, your work ethic and whether you naturally have a good singing voice ought to determine how popular you are as a singer and shouldn't have anything to do with being black. But in a racist society, it's possible a black person is "less marketable", and is therefore less successful, and that is inequality. Then there is structural inequality. Let's argue that racism has led to white people enjoying a higher income, so more white girls get vocal and music lessons during childhood due to their parents having access to more income. The little black girls never got the opportunity. Then there are the disadvantages born out of the stressors of poverty & a dysfunctional family and we can look at developmental psych to aid us here - this one can go pretty deep and negatively affect someone in a multitude of ways into adulthood. Even the neighborhood one grew up in can have effects (remember social disorganization theory? There is data backing this too). In my opinion, it is our duty to mitigate damage done to children and remove structural barriers (and increase social mobility). There is nothing wrong with public health, education, urban planning, and social welfare - these are the achievements of a modern society. But some rich business owners really detest that they have to pay for them, and it's difficult for me to care as I know this group can pay a little more in taxes and still live a luxurious lifestyle. I do have more sympathy for the middle class not wishing to pay for them - but they need to realize that these are the things that make our society nice and provides a safety net for them and their children. I hope this gives you something to think about.