Equality ?!
quality (noun) the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. That’s a very messy explanation of the word. Very misleading. Cause for lots of misinterpretation and frustration. It gives the impression that all people are, or should be equal. It seems to be the aim of many who push for equality. Equality … Continued
quality (noun) the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. That’s a very messy explanation of the word. Very misleading. Cause for lots of misinterpretation and frustration.
It gives the impression that all people are, or should be equal. It seems to be the aim of many who push for equality. Equality of opportunity is a great concept, and all who push for that, genuinely push for equality OF OPPORTUNITY have my utmost respect. Equality of outcome, however, is dependent on effort. The year is 2015 and a hundred people given €100,000 each as a starting point would be considered to have some form of equality. If those hundred people did the exact same thing with their money they should all end up with the same result, whatever that may be, and again they could be considered equal.
If ninety nine of those people chose to spend their money on travelling, a nice car and a deposit on a property they would, for the most part, be considered equal still. If the one outlier decided to invest the €100,000 in Bitcoin they would have bought roughly 232 bitcoin. That would today be worth €14 million-ish.
Equality should only look at outcome when the same effort has been made. None of those 99 would have any reasonably argument to complain about the millions they did not make. They did not take the same risk, or sacrifice. When equality argues that a man and a woman working the same job should get the same pay, that’s something that should be so basic and obvious it’s not even up for discussion. If, however, she has used the same time more productively and her outcome is better than his, why should his salary be the same as hers? Of course there are a million (mostly subjective) criteria that may be used to determine outcome, but that’s so situation-specific that it’s not worth elaborating further.
So the lack of focus on equality of opportunity in most arguments favouring equality is my first pet peeve.
The second is the assumption that all are equal to start off with. That’s an absurd starting point. Let’s ignore the obvious differences between, for example, the only child of a tech billionaire and the ten children of a subsistence farmer. Let’s assume we’re talking about two children from the same family with no major parenting preferences. The same family wealth, the same health, the same opportunities. One may have a tendency towards risk taking, while the other is not. One has won the genetic lottery and has the opportunity to grow up and make a living off sport, music, their looks. On what terms would you say that the two are equal?
Then we get to the worst aspect of the push for equality – the assumption that all should be forced to want the same thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a couple (married or otherwise, with or without children) deciding that she alone will be the breadwinner and he will manage the home. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with them both agreeing to be a traditional family. Or anything in between or outside of the box. ‘She’ does not have to WANT to be a mother and have a career. I’m specifying the female because the argument and pressure to be all things is on women far more than it is on men. Men have the bulk of the pressure to keep finances flowing but that’s a different discussion for a different day. If he needs to work a 65-hour week to make ends meet or to have the luxuries they enjoy, society will not say that there is anything wrong with him barely knowing his children.
The beauty of the human race is its diversity. The ability to come together, gathering life experiences from around the globe and reaching a better tomorrow. How can that ever happen if the aim is for everyone to have the same, when we don’t start off the same and don’t want to end up in the same place? We get further because of our differences, not because we are all equal. How well would a football team with 11 goalkeepers fare? How well would a factory with no managers, or no floor workers fare?
So please, next time you hear somebody speaking about equality in a generic term, point out to them that it’s equality of opportunity that should be the aim, nothing more.