Equality and opportunity

There seems to be a widespread assumption that in our societies equality should be a prime goal. There are other goals, many agree, but they suppose that equality should be a paramount goal, outranking others deemed to be lesser goals.

In John Rawls’ book, “A Theory of Justice,” he famously makes the case that if we were drawing up the composition of a society without knowing what our position in it might be, we’d choose to make it a reasonably equal one. He and many of his followers have thought that this ‘proved’ the case for equality, and that a just society would have to be an equal one.

But as Robert Nozick pointed out almost immediately in “Anarchy, State and Utopia,” such a society would not be equal for long. In his Wilt Chamberlain thought experiment he argued that Wilt Chamberlain might freely choose to exercise his talents for basketball, and that spectators might willingly put 25c in his box to watch him, making him $250,000 richer. To prevent this distortion of equality, the rules would have to prevent people from freely choosing how to exercise their talents, and prevent people from freely choosing how to spend their resources. Few people would call that a just society.

Rawls did not ‘prove’ the case for equality, he assumed it. His assumption was that people would want to be reasonably equal with other people, and would therefore choose a make-up of society in which that happened. But there are those who think that some goals outrank equality. Some would choose a society in which, whatever their role in it, they would have opportunity, the chance to better their lot.

Adam Smith remarked upon “the uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition.” Today we’d make that “every person,” which is what Smith meant. Thomas Jefferson spoke of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” valuing the pursuit of it rather than the attainment of it. Several psychological surveys have shown that people are happier when they feel they are improving their condition than they are in static societies, even those with a higher level of achievement.

Many people value opportunity, and want to live in a society that offers it. This is not equality of opportunity, just the chance of improvement, even when it is not available to everyone in the same degree. A society that does offer opportunity will necessarily be an unequal one because not everyone will avail themselves of the opportunities present to the same extent. It is difficult to conceive how equality of opportunity might be brought about, given that some people have more loving parents, or parents more concerned to help their children to seize opportunities. The childhood environment makes a difference, as does character, and as does chance.

What we can do is work to bring about a society in which everyone can strive to improve their lot and to give themselves and their children better lives. Everyone is a stakeholder, even though not an equal one, in such a society. They all have something to gain from it, together with the chance of self-fulfillment.