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25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 4. Economic equality

[equality of wealth ansd earning ability]

25 ideas
Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato]
     Full Idea: Callicles: We only have to look at nature to find evidence that it is right for better to have a greater share than worse.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483d)
Phaleas proposed equality of property, provided there is equality of education [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Phaleas of Chalcedon was the first to propose that the property of the citizens should be equal. … but there should also be equality of education.
     From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1266a38)
     A reaction: Not sure how you achieve full equality in education, if some of the blighters work harder. A useful reminder that achieving 'equality' is far from a simple matter.
Wealth could be quickly leveled by only the rich giving marriage dowries [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: A leveling could be very quickly achieved by the rich giving but not receiving dowries, and the poor receiving but not giving them.
     From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1266b02)
     A reaction: Consequence: the daughters of the rich are never again allowed to marry (or even speak to) poor people. The modern approach is graduated income tax, presumably because there are reasonably accurate records of income.
All value depends on the labour involved [Locke]
     Full Idea: It is labour that puts the difference of value on everything. ...Whatever bread is worth more than acorns, wine than water, that is wholly owing to labour and industry.
     From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 040)
     A reaction: In capitalism this is nonsense. Supply and demand fix all the values. Locke has slid from labour bestowing ownership to labour bestowing value. No one gets paid on the basis of how hard they work, except on piece rates.
Democracies may sometimes need to restrict equality [Montesquieu]
     Full Idea: In some cases, equality among citizens may be denied by democracy for the utility of democracy.
     From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], 05.05)
     A reaction: He cites people who make sacrifices for the public, and lower orders who are getting above themselves! The desire for equality quickly comes into conflict with other values.
Some equality can be achieved by social categories, combined with taxes and poor relief [Montesquieu]
     Full Idea: Equality is so difficult that exactitude is not possible. It is enough to place citizens by a census within categories that reduce or fix differences. Then laws compensate for inequalities by taxes on the rich and relief given to the poor.
     From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], 05.05)
     A reaction: [compressed] Placing citizens within categories (e.g. 'nobility') has long gone out of fashion. He doesn't say whether you tax the capital or the income of the rich.
If you equalise possessions, people's talents will make them unequal again [Hume]
     Full Idea: Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], III.II.155)
     A reaction: This might not be so if there is a totalitarian restriction of economic freedom.
The pleasure of wealth and power is largely seeing others deprived of them [Rousseau]
     Full Idea: If one sees a handful of powerful and rich men at the height of greatness and fortune while the mob grovels in obscurity and misery, it is because the former prize the things they enjoy only to the extent that the others are deprived of them.
     From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II)
     A reaction: This seems to be an accurate picture of ancien régime France, and it still applies to modern plutocrats. The pleasure of a nice house is not that it is very good, but that it is better than other houses. Inequality gives a lot of pleasure!
No citizen should be rich enough to buy another, and none so poor as forced to sell himself [Rousseau]
     Full Idea: Where wealth is concerned, no citizen should be rich enough to buy another, and none should be so poor as to be forced to sell himself.
     From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.11)
     A reaction: Rousseau is thinking of slavery, but this also points to prostitution as a key indicator of social equality. In Victorian Britain it seems that extensive prostituion was unavoidable; nowadays it looks more like a voluntary choice (for indigenous Britons).
Citizens can rise to any rank that talent, effort and luck can achieve [Kant]
     Full Idea: Every member of the commonwealth must be entitled to reach any degree of rank which a subject can earn through his talent, his industry and his good fortune.
     From: Immanuel Kant (True in Theory, but not in Practice [1792], 2-2)
     A reaction: This is equality of opportunity, which is a mantra for liberals, but has been subjected to good criticisms in modern times. The main question is whether there is formal and legal equality, or actual practical equality.
Money is the best way to achieve just equality [Hegel]
     Full Idea: The justice of equality can be achieved most effectively by money.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 299)
     A reaction: There are also important equalities such as access to education and to superior jobs. Money is more tangible, but you can fob poor people off with quite small sums of money.
Scarce goods may be denied entirely, to avoid their unequal distribution [Russell]
     Full Idea: There is a risk that, in the pursuit of equality, good things which there is difficulty in distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4)
     A reaction: Lovely sentence. The clarity and economy with which he expresses an intricate idea. Why can't you philosophers all write like that? This is not just the unequal distribution of scarce goods, but a subtler problem. The finest wines, for example.
Inequality could easily be mitigated, if it were not for the struggle for power [Weil]
     Full Idea: Inequality could easily be mitigated by the resistance of the weak and the feeling for justice of the strong, …were it not for the intervention of a further factor, namely, the struggle for power.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.62)
     A reaction: The implication is that many of 'the strong' are inclined to diminish inequality, but find themselves trapped and unable to do so, because of irresistable capitalist forces. Sounds plausible.
It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: It is a mark of extreme exploitation or degradation that those who suffer it do NOT see themselves differently from the way they are seen by the exploiters.
     From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2)
Equality of opportunity unfairly rewards those lucky enough to have great ability [Singer]
     Full Idea: Equality of opportunity is not an attractive ideal. It rewards the lucky, who inherit those abilities that allow them to pursue interesting and lucrative careers.
     From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02)
     A reaction: He makes it sound like cheating. Singer has a highly individualistic view, but society as a whole needs the development of talent, wherever it can be found.
Equality is complex, with different spheres of equality where different principles apply [Walzer, by Swift]
     Full Idea: Michael Walzer argues for 'complex equality', saying different goods belong to different distributive 'spheres', each with its own distributive principles.
     From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 3 'Egalitarian'
     A reaction: Sounds interesting. Equality seems to make different demands when it concerns basic food for survival, or fine wines. You can spend your money freely, but hording in a crisis is frowned on.
It is not deplorable that billionaires have more than millionaires [Kekes]
     Full Idea: It is certainly not intuitively deplorable that billionaires have more money than millionaires.
     From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.3)
     A reaction: Nice point. His claim is that sufficiency is the important feature, and equality is largely irrelevant. The reality, though, is that the billionaires, unlike the millionaires, could solve the insufficiency problem.
The problem is basic insufficiency of resources, not their inequality [Kekes]
     Full Idea: If everyone has sufficient resources, it is not objectionable that some have more than others. What is objectionable is that some do not have enough.
     From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.3)
     A reaction: Reasonable, but there seems to be sharp disagreement between the haves and the have-nots over what counts as 'enough'. In an affluent country, does enough include a car, restaurant dining, and foreign holidays? Or just food and shelter?
Equal distribution is no good in a shortage, because there might be no one satisfied [Kekes]
     Full Idea: It is useless to distribute insufficient resources equally, because the equal distribution of insufficient resources may result in the even worse outcome that no one's reasonable expectations are met.
     From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 01.5)
     A reaction: He gives a shortage of oxygen tanks as a persuasive example, but that is hardly typical of the sorts of things that we normally want to distribute.
Libertarians just want formal equality in a free market; the meritocratic view wants fair equality [Sandel]
     Full Idea: The libertarian view of distributive justice is a free market with formal equality of opportunity. The meritocratic view is a free market with fair equality of opportunity.
     From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06)
     A reaction: The obvious question is what has to be done, by intervention, to make the market fair. There are two major rival views of equality here. Is the starting point fair, and is the race itself fair?
Inequalities are needed, as incentives to do the most important jobs [Swift]
     Full Idea: Without inequalities, people will have no incentive to do one job rather than another - to do the kind of work which is most useful.
     From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Rawls')
     A reaction: The reality is that the lowest pay goes to the jobs that no one wants to do, and all the really nice jobs are usually well paid. Which is a conspiracy, because all the salaries are set by the people with the nice jobs.
A person can desire redistibution of wealth, without it being for reasons of equality [Swift]
     Full Idea: Someone who rejects equality can care passionately that resources should be transferred from the rich to the poor. They are just rejecting a particular reason that might be offered to justify the redistribution.
     From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 3 'Intro')
     A reaction: For example, it might be for utilitarian reasons, which usually only seek maximised happiness, not equal happiness. And one may love many forms of equality, without economic equality being one of them.
If there is no suffering, wealth inequalities don't matter much [Tuckness/Wolf]
     Full Idea: It is hard to get worked up over wealth inequalities if no one is suffering from them!
     From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 3 'Deprivation')
     A reaction: The more the poorer group resent the inequality, the more they suffer. When is resenting huge inequalities in wealth justified? It depends how the big wealth was obtained.
Inequalities are worse if they seem to be your fault, rather than social facts [Charvet]
     Full Idea: Inequality is worse in a meritocracy than in a stratified society, because everyone enjoys a formal equality of status and your position in the social order is due to your merit or lack of merit, so you have only yourself to blame for being at the bottom.
     From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 10)
     A reaction: This is the simple point that it is worse to lack some good if you might have possessed it, rather than it being entirely out of reach. It also makes the false assumption that people are largely responsible for their merit or lack of it (ignoring luck).
Money allows unlimited inequalities, and we obviously all agree to money [Charvet]
     Full Idea: The introduction of money allows people to accumulate wealth without limit. Since money only works through everyone's agreement …everyone can be taken to have agreed to the consequences of money in the unequal distribution of wealth.
     From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 11)
     A reaction: [Locke] Presumably large inequalities of possessions and territory were possible before money, but there was at least an upper limit. The current owner of Amazon may end up with more wealth than the whole of the rest of humanity combined.