Inequality is the natural state of humankind. Yet even people who adhere to the naturalistic fallacy–the belief that whatever is natural must be good–are vehement in their rejection of inequality of any sort, especially economic inequity.
This is understandable. In his book Equality: The Impossible Quest, historian Martin van Creveld writes: "Where there is no equality there can be neither justice nor liberty." Most people would agree with this assertion. But Creveld goes on: "On the other hand, equality itself is not without its dangers. Should it be pushed too far, it can easily reach the point where it limits, or even eliminates, both liberty AND justice." Yet leftist ideologues never admit this historically proven fact.
The idea of equality started in the Western world with the ancient Greeks in 650 BCE, lasted about 300 years, then lay fallow until revived in the 17th century in Europe, from which the ideal spread, ironically enough, with colonial conquest.
In the modern world, jeremiads against inequality usually centre around economic disparities and the most popular explanations among leftist ideologues centre around injustice, either historical or contemporaneous.
The economist Thomas Sowell in his book Wealth, Poverty and Politics notes: "Since many, if not most, economic outcomes depend on more than one factor, the likelihood of all the various factors coming together in such a way as to produce equal levels of prosperity and progress among peoples and nations around the world seems very remote."
Egalitarian arguments are often internally incoherent, claiming, for example, that inequality is the root cause for violence against women even though inequity affects men at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder far more potently; or claiming that the world is more totalitarian now than in the past, in defiance of even recent history; or arguing that the inequality of a particular community is rooted in bigotry, rather than the dependency politics of that community.
Generally, such views about inequality arises from confusion about moral vs empirical argument.
Empirical arguments are based on facts, and do not necessarily mean that the person making such arguments believe that a fact ought to be, only that it is. Non-religious moral arguments are rooted in ethical logic, but do not necessarily mean that this is how the world is.
However, most people who make moral arguments believe that their argument proves that this is how the world ought to be.
Ergo, if the world is not so, this must mean that some malign or evil force has skewed an individual or group away from the natural state of equity.
The assertion that "All men are created equal," for example, is obviously untrue in any factual sense. Some human beings are born with superior physiologies, looks, or brains.
Even temperament appears to be hard-wired from birth, and most people would agree that a cheerful temperament is superior to a depressive one.
Even the religiously flavoured claim that "All men are equal in the sight of God" is not considered true by most believers, who are after all striving to be among the select few who get into Heaven. The confusion arises because these statements are purely civic–ie, they mean that all human beings in a polity have the same rights as citizens. Even the religious version means only that all people have inherent moral worth.
As Sowell notes: "Gross inequalities in outcomes are rampant in all kinds of human endeavours around the world–whether economic or otherwise–including those that can hardly be explained by discrimination, exploitation or the many other sins of human beings.
Those sins are real, but their MORAL significance does automatically make them CAUSAL factors of the same significance in economic outcomes."
Nonetheless, ideologues whose belief-systems are based on opposition to inequality usually fail to define what they mean by inequality in any rigorous sense. For example, if their argument is that the gap between rich and poor is too wide, they do not say what gap is acceptable.
Indeed, the assertion that "the gap between rich and poor has widened in the past X years" is usually taken as an argument sufficient onto itself.
Yet in most cases this gap has widened, not because poverty hasn't been reduced, but because the poor have not progressed as much as the wealthy.
But does this mean that poverty reduction is preferable to a widening gap between the haves and the haves-not-as-much?
Or if the argument is that the poor should be progressing relatively more than the rich, what kind of political or economic policies could ensure that outcome, when the poor by definition have fewer resources and wealth-creating skills?
The reality may be that inequality and meritocracy are inherently exclusive, and even middle ground is a slippery slope. In a society like ours, however, meritocracy is a more urgent need than equity.
Unfortunately, rhetoric about equality wins more votes, even as politicians woo individuals and groups with superior resources in order to fill their campaign chests.
Hence we have always had the worst of both worlds in this place.
n Kevin Baldeosingh is a professional writer, author of three novels, and co-author of a History textbook.
