Open Letter to Woke Students

[Consul]

… Pure "negative liberty" would be more a Libertarian value, not a classical liberal one.…

You're wrong, because—like contemporary libertarianism—classical (old) liberalism affirms negative liberty without also affirming positive liberty. (See my previous posts!)

Regarding the distinction between "liberalism" and "libertarianism", the latter term was originally introduced in the 19th century as a synonym of "anarchism".

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a "libertarian" as "one who approves of or advocates liberty", in which case "libertarian" and "liberal" are synonyms. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a "libertarian" more narrowly as "one who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state". This means either minarchist liberalism (minarcho-liberalism, minimal-state liberalism) or anarchist liberalism (anarcho-liberalism, no-state liberalism).

Given its contemporary meaning, "libertarianism" refers either to economic minarcho-liberalism (minarcho-capitalism)—which is the same as classical economic liberalism—or to economic anarcho-liberalism (anarcho-capitalism). Liberals needn't be anarchists or minarchists, so there's a distinction between minarchist/anarchist liberalism (= contemporary libertarianism) and "archist" liberalism, which doesn't seek to eliminate or minimize the role of the state especially in economic affairs. Social liberalism is "archistic", because it rejects governmentally uncontrolled laissez-faire economics and wants a Sozialstaat ("social state"/"welfare state") helping the poor and the disadvantaged (as a realization of the positive liberty of individuals).

[Consul]

SOURCE: Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. p. 40

You keep citing a single high-school-level textbook, it seems: do you have anybody other than Heywood?

Yes, but Heywood simply is the best introduction to the spectrum of political ideologies available. That there is now a seventh edition proves that teachers and students like it—and so do I.

[Gary Childress]

Whether there is a God or not, having "rights" helps us.

But you're skipping the important question: HOW do we "have" rights? Who provides them to us?

"How" is probably the easiest question to answer. We can witness that for ourselves. How does anything happen among humans? If you want to have a New Year's party, you talk with others, you come up with a location and workout who brings what. People come together and communicate.

Is God somehow indispensible in order to have a social gathering? Is God somehow indispensible for people to form a political agenda or rules? It just requires people to come together and discuss what we want to do. God didn't write John Lockes books, Locke doesn't seem to mention having taken word for word dictation from God. Locke came up with some ideas that lots of people saw as the way they thought things ought to be.

God didn't attend the convention of delegates that formed the US Constitution for example, at least no one recoded him present or notice him occupying one of the seats. People sat and argued about things for hours. Had God himself been at the convention, then one might think slavery would have been outright dismissed as wrong. It was understood as something the participants didn't want to happen to themselves but no one who was an actual slave was allowed to participate in the discussion and speak up about it. So it wasn't abolished outright in name.

[Immanuel Can]

… Pure "negative liberty" would be more a Libertarian value, not a classical liberal one.…

You're wrong, because—like contemporary libertarianism—classical (old) liberalism affirms negative liberty without also affirming positive liberty. (See my previous posts!)

No, that's not the case. Sorry. Classical liberalism is very affirming of positive liberty, but it's with regard to opportunity, not to forced outcomes.

[Immanuel Can]

SOURCE: Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. p. 40

You keep citing a single high-school-level textbook, it seems: do you have anybody other than Heywood?

Yes, but Heywood simply is the best introduction to the spectrum of political ideologies available.

Then let's have something more substantial. Heywood's already been wrong a few times, just in the passages you quoted. Let's move the evidence up a level. Heywood's just providing his personal gloss on things, not quoting essential sources.

[Immanuel Can]

Whether there is a God or not, having "rights" helps us.

But you're skipping the important question: HOW do we "have" rights? Who provides them to us?

"How" is probably the easiest question to answer.

I don't think you understand the question, then. It's not only not "easy" from a secular perspective, I suspect it's "impossible."

To what rationale were the suffragettes and freedom marchers, or the anti-Aparteid forces, or the writers of the Declaration appealing when they claimed to have "rights"? Very clearly, all three were not thinking of their respective societies, since all three had societies that were denying them those "rights." So when they said we have a "right" to vote, to equality or to integration, what source of "rights" were they invoking to combat the rights-denial of their societies?

[Immanuel Can]

I'm going to speak directly to you, and tell you the truth. Do with it what you will.

I’ve seen you try to work this angle before, dearest Immanuel. It is transparent.

I mean it. I'm the only one, perhaps, who will tell you how it is. The truth is a gift; use it well.

It is what I said.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It is what I said.

Immanuel, please.

[Consul]

The problem with mere equality of opportunity is that…

"A society that satisfied the ideal of formal equality of opportunity might provide grim conditions of life for those who are unsuccessful in competitions for positions of advantage. Even a perfect meritocracy that satisfies the stringent Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity principle might impose the same grim conditions of life on those who lack marketable merit and skill. The class of competitive losers might include some who have adequate native talents but fail to make good use of them, but some of the losers will be those with the bad luck to be born without much by way of native talent. The question then arises whether any further substantive ideals of equality, beyond meritocratic ideals, should be affirmed."

Egalitarianism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/

And the answer is "No."

What "equality" means, when imposed by government fiat, is tyranny: it means the stripping of the achieving and deserving, the industrious and innovative, to serve the undeserving and unachieving, the indolent and foolish. It means a race to the bottom, a race to the lowest common denominator: because the foolish cannot be made smart, the undeserving cannot be made deserving, and the unexceptional cannot be made exceptional: therefore, the only alternative the Socialist tyrants have is to ram everybody down to the lowest level -- to make the strong weak, the smart foolish and the achieving the same as the non-contributing weasels at the bottom.

But your objector passage asks about what to do with those who are disadvantaged at the start, having "bad luck to be born" in some difficulty, or who "have adequate native talents by fail to make good use of them." Classical liberalism already has the answer to that: give them equal opportunity. The bad luck will go away, and those with adequate talents will use them -- unless they're lazy and refuse to, in which case it's nobody's fault that they fail. It's their own. And they have a right to fail if they want to.

Now, a separate question is what to do with those who are inherently unintelligent, or inherently incapable of achievement. And the answer to that is simple: firstly, the higher-ranking owe it to the lower ranks to treat them with basic human dignity, and to be merciful to them. But they do not owe it to them to BECOME them. That is self-destructive, and damaging to society.

Socialism makes a huge mistake in regard to hierarchy, as Jordan Peterson has so astutely pointed out: it assumes that hierarchies can be of only one type -- hierarchies of power, or tyrannies. And some are. But to think that those are the only hierarchies -- or even the primary reason for hierarchy -- -- is a very foolish and destructive mistake on the part of Socialist theorists. Hierarchies are actually inevitable, in all matters in which excellence is involved. "Excellence" means somebody does something great, something elite, in some area of human endeavour: and the minute they do, it creates hierarchy. And the benefits of excellents are very socially-significant: they don't just benefit the person who is excellent, but everybody else in society who comes to benefit from that excellence, or who uses it as an index for creating their own excellence.

It could be in athleticism, aesthetics, business, intellection, innovation, creativity, courage, or any other dimension of human achievement, but hierarchies develop whenever somebody does something excellent, by definition. So most actual hierarchies are not tyrannies: they are ranks of competence.

That's why Socialism hates competence. And it's an extremely foolish and society-destructive antipathy they harbour, when they denigrate hierarchies.

——————

"We can secure Equality in certain respects between members of certain classes for certain purposes and under certain conditions; but never, and necessarily never, Equality in all respects between all men for all purposes and under all conditions. The egalitarian is doomed to a life not only of grumbling and everlasting envy, but of endless and inevitable disappointment."

(Lucas, J. R. "Against Equality." Philosophy 40/154 (1965): 296–307. p. 306)

Realistic socialists aren't absolute, total egalitarians ("panegalitarians"), because they are well aware that it is impossible to completely eliminate all inequalities and all hierarchies, i.e. to realize equality for everybody in all respects and under all conditions. They agree with Thomas Nagel (see quotes below!) that "complete equality among persons being impossible, the real meaning of the idea is reduction or amelioration of inequality," and that there is a "need for hierarchies of power in any political and legal system, and in any economic system except the most primitive."

However, many of those occupying top positions in the political or economic system actually display a lack of competence, excellence, or achievement, not being where they are in the social hierarchy by virtue of merit or desert. There is such a thing as pseudomeritocracy in our societies that cannot justify inequality, particularly inequality of power!
That said…

Yet while one must relinquish the absolute extremity suggested by all respects, one need not abandon completely the ideal of equality if there are some respects in which equality for all is both possible (conceivable in theory and actualizable in practice) and desirable.

(Cauthen, Kenneth. The Passion for Equality. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987. p. 12)

I don't think a just society is realizable by means of equality of opportunity and meritocracy alone. What else is required is a complicated question that cannot be answered with a few sentences. However, I don't share the stupidly anti-meritocratic attitude of woke egalitarianism, which devalues competence and excellence as "oppressive". To say that equality of opportunity isn't the be-all and end-all of equality is not to say that blind equality of outcome is.

I agree with the socialists that…

"Every human society must justify its inequalities: unless reasons for them are found, the whole political and social edifice stands in danger of collapse. Every epoch therefore develops a range of contradictory discourses and ideologies for the purpose of legitimizing the inequality that already exists or that people believe should exist. From these discourses emerge certain economic, social, and political rules, which people then use to make sense of the ambient social structure. Out of the clash of contradictory discourses—a clash that is at once economic, social, and political—comes a dominant narrative or narratives, which bolster the existing inequality regime.

In today’s societies, these justificatory narratives comprise themes of property, entrepreneurship, and meritocracy: modern inequality is said to be just because it is the result of a freely chosen process in which everyone enjoys equal access to the market and to property and automatically benefits from the wealth accumulated by the wealthiest individuals, who are also the most enterprising, deserving, and useful. Hence modern inequality is said to be diametrically opposed to the kind of inequality found in premodern societies, which was based on rigid, arbitrary, and often despotic differences of status.

The problem is that this proprietarian and meritocratic narrative, which first flourished in the nineteenth century after the collapse of the Old Regime and its society of orders and which was radically revised for a global audience at the end of the twentieth century following the fall of Soviet communism and the triumph of hypercapitalism, is looking more and more fragile. From it a variety of contradictions have emerged—contradictions which take very different forms in Europe and the United States, in India and Brazil, in China and South Africa, in Venezuela and the Middle East. And yet today, two decades into the twenty-first century, the various trajectories of these different countries are increasingly interconnected, their distinctive individual histories notwithstanding. Only by adopting a transnational perspective can we hope to understand the weaknesses of these narratives and begin to construct an alternative.

Indeed, socioeconomic inequality has increased in all regions of the world since the 1980s. In some cases it has become so extreme that it is difficult to justify in terms of the general interest. Nearly everywhere a gaping chasm divides the official meritocratic discourse from the reality of access to education and wealth for society’s least favored classes. The discourse of meritocracy and entrepreneurship often seems to serve primarily as a way for the winners in today’s economy to justify any level of inequality whatsoever while peremptorily blaming the losers for lacking talent, virtue, and diligence. In previous inequality regimes, the poor were not blamed for their own poverty, or at any rate not to the same extent; earlier justificatory narratives stressed instead the functional complementarity of different social groups.

Modern inequality also exhibits a range of discriminatory practices based on status, race, and religion, practices pursued with a violence that the meritocratic fairy tale utterly fails to acknowledge. In these respects, modern society can be as brutal as the premodern societies from which it likes to distinguish itself. Consider, for example, the discrimination faced by the homeless, immigrants, and people of color. Think, too, of the many migrants who have drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean. Without a credible new universalistic and egalitarian narrative, it is all too likely that the challenges of rising inequality, immigration, and climate change will precipitate a retreat into identitarian nationalist politics based on fears of a “great replacement” of one population by another. We saw this in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, and it seems to be happening again in various parts of the world in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

It was World War I that spelled the end of the so-called Belle Époque (1880–1914), which was belle only when compared with the explosion of violence that followed. In fact, it was belle primarily for those who owned property, especially if they were white males. If we do not radically transform the present economic system to make it less inegalitarian, more equitable, and more sustainable, xenophobic “populism” could well triumph at the ballot box and initiate changes that will destroy the global, hypercapitalist, digital economy that has dominated the world since 1990. To avoid this danger, historical understanding remains our best tool. Every human society needs to justify its inequalities, and every justification contains its share of truth and exaggeration, boldness and cowardice, idealism and self-interest."

(Piketty, Thomas. Capital and Ideology. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020. pp. 1-2)

"equality. Currently the most controversial of the great social ideals. In the abstract, it means that people who are similarly situated in morally relevant respects should be treated similarly; but everything depends on what kinds of similarity count as relevant, and what constitutes similar treatment. Is a society equal enough if it guarantees all its citizens the same basic political and legal rights, or should it try to foster a much more general equality of condition? Complete equality among persons being impossible, the real meaning of the idea is reduction or amelioration of inequality.

Possible interpretations include equality before the law, equality of political power, equality of opportunity for social and economic advancement, equality of resources, equality of welfare, equality of freedom, and equality of respect. Merely abolishing aristocracy and giving everybody the vote is compatible with huge inequalities in social condition and political influence. By now it is relatively uncontroversial in Western societies that governments should not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin, and that they should discourage such discrimination by private parties. Controversy arises over the extent to which governments should also aim at greater social and economic equality through policies of collective social provision, public health and education, and redistribution of income or wealth, and whether they should employ policies of affirmative action to produce greater equality among groups if there has been discrimination in the past.

The main issue is whether we should regard certain human inequalities and their consequences as natural, and only be concerned not to impose further artificial ones, or whether we should base social policy on the assumption that all persons are equally deserving of a good life, and that their society should try to make it possible for them to have it. This latter goal of positive equality will not be realized through mere equality of opportunity, since equal opportunity combined with unequal ability and luck produce very unequal results.

An important alternative view is that equality has no value in itself, but is significant only for its effects. Utilitarianism, for example, holds that society should be arranged to maximize the total happiness of its members, without regard to how benefits and disadvantages are distributed, except as this affects the total. However, economic equality is likely to have instrumental value, because of the principle of diminishing marginal utility: a given sum transferred from rich to poor will enhance the welfare of the latter more than it will decrease the welfare of the former. But too strong an effort toward equality can have economic effects which diminish utility."

("Equality," by Thomas Nagel. Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed., edited by Ted Honderich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp. 266-7)

"inequality. In political and social theory, inequality consists in the differences between individuals or groups in the possession of what is desirable or undesirable. The main categories of inequality embodied in a society are political, legal, social, and economic. The clearest forms of political inequality are aristocracy and the exclusion of certain groups—women, racial or religious minorities, or those without property—from voting or political office. Legal inequality is exemplified by differences in liability to criminal prosecution or civil action, or in freedom of contract. Social inequality involves differences in status, deference, and subordination—systems of racial caste being an extreme example. Class inequalities are both social and economic, marking children with the wealth and professional status of their parents.

Some inequalities are politically enforced; others merely arise unless they are prevented. While most modern political theories are opposed to the enforcement of inequalities between groups, they must all face the question how much should be done to prevent inequalities from developing, between either groups or individuals.

Two factors make it impossible to eliminate inequality entirely: first, the need for hierarchies of power in any political and legal system, and in any economic system except the most primitive; second, the fact that there are natural inequalities—of ability, enterprise, and luck—which affect people’s success in life. Left to themselves some people will accumulate more wealth than others and use it to benefit their children, who will do the same, thus giving rise to a class system. The upper classes will also tend to acquire more legal and political power and a higher social status, even if the system is formally democratic and no groups are legally excluded from these advantages.

The moral question is whether a society should be concerned to narrow gaps of this sort, on the ground that the losers, and more especially their children, do not deserve their disadvantages. The welfare state—provision of social benefits paid for by taxes—is one way of doing this. Moral radical methods, designed to abolish class hierarchy entirely by legal restrictions on the private accumulation of wealth, seem to entail unacceptable general interference by the state with personal as well as economic liberty, and also tend to undermine economic efficiency. Some people believe that so long as there is legal equality of opportunity—so that no one is prohibited from becoming rich and powerful if they can—inequality of results is unobjectionable. But even if it is morally unfortunate, some significant inequality of results probably has to be accepted as a permanent feature of the social world."

("Inequality," by Thomas Nagel. Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed., edited by Ted Honderich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 433)

The crucial question is how much inequality "has to be accepted as a permanent feature of the social world," and how much of the eliminable social inequality ought to be accepted as morally justified.

[Consul]

Yes, but Heywood simply is the best introduction to the spectrum of political ideologies available.

Then let's have something more substantial. Heywood's already been wrong a few times, just in the passages you quoted. Let's move the evidence up a level. Heywood's just providing his personal gloss on things, not quoting essential sources.

Have you read his book, which contains a 10-page bibliography? It doesn't seem so. Anyway, your assertion that "Heywood's just providing his personal gloss on things" is false!

[Consul]

You're wrong, because—like contemporary libertarianism—classical (old) liberalism affirms negative liberty without also affirming positive liberty. (See my previous posts!)

No, that's not the case. Sorry. Classical liberalism is very affirming of positive liberty, but it's with regard to opportunity, not to forced outcomes.

You're wrong, because classical/old liberals affirm equality of opportunity only as an aspect of negative liberty (as what Nagel calls negative equality of opportunity).

"The old-style 'equality of opportunity' concept focused on people's formal freedom (or 'negative liberty'). This resulted in a narrow view of opportunities that didn't account of the things that people can actually do and be in practice; and that was insensitive to underlying expectations, barriers and constraints."

(Vizard, Polly. "Towards a New Model of Public Services: The Capability Approach and Rights-Based Approaches." In Public Services: A New Reform Agenda, edited by Simon Griffiths, Henry Kippin, & Gerry Stoker, 53-70. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. p. 56)
——————
"Equality of opportunity is a rather vague concept, but it too can be divided into two approaches. One…is more concerned with ensuring that economic agents are equal in the range of opportunities that a market economy offers—what in French is called “une carrière ouverte aux talents.” Unfairness from that angle takes the form of arbitrary interventions that limit the choices that some individuals could have otherwise made, for example, inequality before the law, protected monopolies, heavy taxation, and so on. Suggesting an apt parallel with the concept of negative liberty or liberty as noninterference, Thomas Nagel (2002 [Concealment and Exposure], 93) refers to this conception as “negative equality of opportunity” by which he means “the absence of barriers for competition for places in the social and economic hierarchy, so that anyone can rise to a position for which he [sic] is qualified.” A vibrant economy generates more opportunities for advancement; thus, economic growth can be said to be, if not a necessary condition, at least a facilitating factor for promoting this sort of equality of opportunities. (If those who do well are better- off because of the economic rents they enjoy and protect at the expense of others, the end result is likely to be a stagnating economy.) The other meaning—…which is more commonly used by not only egalitarian philosophers and social activists but also most progressive/heterodox economists—is more concerned with equalizing access to existing opportunities for advancement (e.g., education, health) rather than with maximizing opportunities for entrepreneurship and amassing wealth. Indeed, promoting this sort of equality of access to resources (but not of outcomes) could conceivably impose a cost on those who prefer to take their chances in a perfectly competitive economy, that is, reduce efficiency. "

(Dobuzinskis, Laurent. Economic Growth and Inequality. Abingdon: Routledge, 2023. pp. 81-2)
——————
"Equal opportunity has come to be a central tenet of most liberal positions, but it is open to two very different interpretations, negative and positive. Negative equality of opportunity means the absence of barriers to competition for places in the social and economic hierarchy, so that anyone can rise to a position for which he is qualified. This is what Rawls calls the principle of “careers open to talents.” Positive equality of opportunity, or what Rawls calls “fair equality of opportunity,” requires more: It requires that everyone, whatever his starting place in life, have the same opportunity to develop his natural talents to the level of which he is capable so that he can compete for a position, when the time comes, without handicaps that are due to a deprived background. The second interpretation, enabling everyone to realize his potentialities, demands much more state action than the first, making sure the doors are open to anyone who qualifies."

(Nagel, Thomas. Concealment and Exposure, and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. p. 93)

[Gary Childress]

So when they said we have a "right" to vote, to equality or to integration, what source of "rights" were they invoking to combat the rights-denial of their societies?

Probably the same "source" that gays cite when they insist they have a right to express "pride" with parades. But having "pride" in their lifestyles is not something Christians deem appropriate, any more than those who fought against women's suffrage or integration into society thought those things were appropriate.

In the end, it all comes down to humans trying to negate one another in order to feel the vitality that comes with empowerment (or even with being bearers of the one "truth"). And empowerment always comes at the expense of someone who must be disempowered in order for there to be empowerment. As I've stated repeatedly, life thrives at the expense of life. Do I like it? No. I've lost my "sanity" in the clash of cultures and people. I basically watch a few others now fighting for room at the top of the pile of spiritual corpses that comprise what's left of high society, while the ones still fighting for the top of the heap laugh at my ineptitude in the process. It's not pretty, at least not to me. The world is a broken place. God ought to be asking for our forgiveness, not the other way around.

But I'm a loser and think the way losers think. I have only pessimism to offer. Sorry. Maybe ask AJ if he'll help you become a radiant "butterfly" so you can escape all the "spiders" of depravity sulking around in the jar or whatever. I'm done with this world. All I can do is make others depressed and therefore seek therapy for themselves where "psychiatrists" and such will teach them to be "thankful" and "affirm" life.

It's all my fault. If I weren't such a "negative" person everyone would be happy all the time and get along marvelously. Maybe bumping me off will therefore make humankind happier in the aggregate. Give it a try. See if all the ugliness and despair goes away when you get rid of me. I'm the source of it all. There can't be progress without eliminating sick and unclean people like me. Once we're gone life will be a non-stop festival.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Our culture and many people around us, people we know, are in processes of flickering out, decaying, coming apart, dissolving, going insane, losing their shit, exploding & imploding, barking belching and vomiting. Very well! Let it be. How can I take every advantage available to me from all of this? Cease being preoccupied with false concerns none of my own? How can I turn any of their disadvantage to my greater advantage and let the plagued ones live out the consequences of what animates them, the fate that defines them?

[Gary Childress]

Our culture and many people around us, people we know, are in processes of flickering out, decaying, coming apart, dissolving, going insane, losing their shit, exploding & imploding, barking belching and vomiting. Very well! Let it be. How can I take every advantage available to me from all of this? Cease being preoccupied with false concerns none of my own? How can I turn any of their disadvantage to my greater advantage and let the plagued ones live out the consequences of what animates them, the fate they are living?

I don't know. Maybe stack us in rows and make a pretty design out of our bodies? Or perhaps we can be used in carnival acts like the "Elephant Man" or something? Charge admission to see the "loonies". Be creative! ¯\_(*_*)_/¯

[Immanuel Can]

——————

"We can secure Equality in certain respects between members of certain classes for certain purposes and under certain conditions; but never, and necessarily never, Equality in all respects between all men for all purposes and under all conditions. The egalitarian is doomed to a life not only of grumbling and everlasting envy, but of endless and inevitable disappointment."

(Lucas, J. R. "Against Equality." Philosophy 40/154 (1965): 296–307. p. 306)

Now, there’s a good quotation. I agree with it.

Realistic socialists

A contradiction in terms. And that’s not my opinion: it’s Socialists themselves who insist that a non-utopian Socialism is not real Socialism at all. The default assumption of all their propaganda, too, is that if “inequality” exists, the sole reason for it has to be “oppression.” And why they think that, we’re going to see shortly: it has to do with their insistence that “equality” is the natural state of things — which is clearly not the case.

However, many of those occupying top positions in the political or economic system actually display a lack of competence,

Well, that’s certainly true of our politicians…but many of them are also Socialists. So bad politicians are a ubiquitous phenomenon, not restricted to one side.

There is such a thing as pseudomeritocracy in our societies that cannot justify inequality, particularly inequality of power!

Indeed there is. But you rightly call it “pseudo.” Real meritocracy has to be based on real merit. No part of the argument that phony versions are possible suggests meritocracy is not actually better than the alternative.

I agree with the socialists that…

"Every human society must justify its inequalities:

Wait. That’s dead wrong. In fact, it could not be more obviously wrong.

Which is the natural state of things: equality or inequality? The answer is obvious: inequality. So if there are inequalities, they are to be expected. What is extraordinary, and what needs a proper justifying, is any measure taken to produce equality when everything tends to inequality. Hierarchy is unavoidable, and often good. What line of justification can be raised that we ought to make the foolish look wise, the weak look strong, the lazy get the honour of the diligent, the dullard get the advantages of the inventive, the witless have the same advantages as the creative, and so on?

And when the measures the Socialists advocate to produce their mythical “equality” include robbery, bullying, the denigration of excellence, the forcing of compliance at gunpoint, the burning of private property, and so on, it is very clearly the Socialists and only the Socialists who need to be explaining what might justify the extraordinary measures they’re taking to induce an unnatural state of equalization.

Indeed, socioeconomic inequality has increased in all regions of the world since the 1980s.

A deceptive claim here.

Socioeconomic inequality happens whenever one region progresses in some way. And it’s true to say that the West has outstripped the rest of the world in economic growth since 1980. But two caveats must be noted: one is that much of the inequality was caused by the collapse of the failed Soviet regime and other Socialist zones. The other is that the so-called “Third World” was actually rising out of poverty during this period, gaining in average standard of living — and almost exclusively as a result of free-enterprise initiatives at the grass roots level. This nearly-miraculous level of improvement was hardly reported at all in the Developed World, but is truly one of the miracles of the last half century.

That’s the problem with emphasizing “inequality.” All “inequality” tells one is the gap between two figures. And that’s very deceptive. If Tom earned $15/hr in 1970, and $25/hr in 1980, and Ravinder earned the equivalent of $2 in 1970 and $10 in 1980, it’s true that the gap between Tom and Ravinder’s income increased; but it’s also true that both Tom and Ravinder are far better off in 1980 than either of them was in 1970. Moreover, the increasing in Ravinder’s income, if he is in the Developing World, is far more likely to produce significant improvements in his life conditions than the raise gained by Tom will produce in his society.

Therefore, why should we accuse Tom of being unfair to Ravinder? So far, they’re both winning. And Tom’s advances have absolutely no connection to Ravinder’s. Plausibly, they are both earning their advantages.

The upshot is that “inequality” is the wrong thing to focus on. It’s just a fancy name for “covetousness” or “jealousy” — but with the particularly nasty Socialist twist that suggests that resenting somebody else’s achievements somehow makes the envious person “virtuous” and “on the side of the oppressed.” Of course, it does no such thing.

Is a society equal enough if it guarantees all its citizens the same basic political and legal rights, or should it try to foster a much more general equality of condition?

Here’s where we need to be careful: this is a loaded question. It uses the benign term “foster” for the measures that Socialists ordinarily favour: forced equalization, confiscation of property, humiliation of achievers, the elimination of the discontent, and the surrender of large populations to the alleged “tender mercies” of the Socialist elite. “Fosters” fails to cover what’s being advocated, for sure.

No we should not “foster” any “more general equality of condition.” Why should we not? Because we should not reward indolence, stupidity, laziness, envy and greed. What we should do is ensure every person has sufficient opportunities to rise to the highest level they can achieve by proper diligence, creativity and effort on their part…but nothing beyond that. And the final result will inevitably still be “unequal,” because people have unequal gifts, diligence, willingness to face risk, and so on. Those that are willing to achieve should be allowed to do so, and to reap the rewards of their achievement.

Complete equality among persons being impossible, the real meaning of the idea is reduction or amelioration of inequality.

Again, why? If differences between people are the natural state of things, why should we suppose we are duty bound or morally obliged to force them to appear “equal”? And what measures are we thinking we would have to take to make all the achievements, choices, innovations, efforts and distinctions that create differences between people suddenly vaporize? There’s something terribly sinister about the desire to “equalize.” And that sinister nature has been exhibited by every Socialist regime throughout history.

… we should base social policy on the assumption that all persons are equally deserving of a good life, and that their society should try to make it possible for them to have it.

“All persons”? So a complete do-nothing should be the equal of a Bill Gates? And a Charles Manson should be given a guaranteed income at public expense? Or do you simply mean that in a compassionate society, we should not let people who have done no evil die in the streets? Because that last one seems fair enough, but does not require any Socialism.