Equality is not a good thing. It’s not a bad thing either. It’s morally neutral. Less inequality is not a good thing, and neither is more inequality.
For example: The reason living standards are better than they have ever been before is the creation of wealth. What will improve people’s lives most in the future is the creation of more wealth. Inequality doesn’t matter: if someone’s real income doubles over ten years, it just doesn’t matter if someone else’s income quadruples. Except, of course, in the extremely unusual case of the second person’s income quadrupling hindering the growth of the first person’s income. The opposite is much more likely to be the case.
We should also be wary of redistributing wealth, because while it will cause a short-term increase in the incomes of the less-well-off, it will reduce long-term increase.
As Andrew Perraut says,
“if markets are as massively productive as we libertarians believe and compounding returns to growth in the long term are taken into account, you could probably justify no more than very basic safety nets, for fear of distorting the economy and dramatically lowering everyone’s goods in the future.”
So equality may not be a bad thing, but promoting equality is a bad thing for two reasons. Here’s a third: promoting equality kills. The promotion of equality, for no other reason than ideology, is leading directly to many deaths.
I’m talking about the NHS, and the cases of Colette Mills and Linda O’Boyle.
Both were suffering from cancer. The NHS does not have enough money to pay for certain extra drugs. The patients wanted to pay for the extra drugs themselves, but were told that if they did, they would have to pay for their entire treatment: any treatment they were currently receiving for free would be withdrawn. The patients could afford the extra drugs if they continued to receive the treatment they were already getting for free. But they couldn’t afford the whole lot.
The Department of Health said: “Co-payments would risk creating a two-tier health service and be in direct contravention with the principles and values of the NHS.”
Yes, it would. Rather, there is already a two-tier health service in this country. There is the NHS, and there is (better) private healthcare. (It must be better, otherwise people wouldn’t pay for it.) Private healthcare still exists, even though the Labour Party would like to ban it. (They can’t afford to, of course, because patients going private save the NHS money).
Yes, patients paying for extra treatment would promote the private sector. This would be a good thing. It wouldn’t harm anyone who couldn’t afford to. Indeed, it would help the NHS, because even people who don’t go completely private might start increasing the use they make of the private sector, thus saving the NHS money and allowing it to spend it on those who need it more.
The problem is the people who think that inequality is always at someone’s expense. It isn’t, as these cases show.
The “principles and values” of the NHS are clearly stupid, and lead to entirely preventable deaths.
“It wasn’t going to cost them. I was going to pay for it. How can they say this policy is far more important than somebody’s life?”
Will the Conservatives fix this?
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said in a statement that it was “tempting” to allow patients to pay for extra cancer treatments that were not funded by the NHS.
The party has been reluctant to express an opinion on the issue, fearing that it could be portrayed as favouring middle-class patients who can afford to buy themselves extra treatment.
I guess not, then.
I think the main problem is that people hear words like “equality” and all of sudden a hundred unexamined assumptions leap to mind about what this concept actually entails. It is necessary to scrutinise what one means by “equality” if one is to make progress. Unfortunately, the majority of the electorate, and most journalists, are unable to think in such precise terms; observing one person enjoy a higher standard of living than another smacks of a vague thing called “inequality”, but no-one really knows why. A popular option today is to profess belief in “equality of opportunity” rather than equality of outcome, but the only realistic way in which to achieve this is to introduce something like 100% inheritance tax so every child starts life from scratch. A more accurate and thorough solution would be to confiscate every child at birth in order to eradicate parental inequalities and raise them all in collective camps.
Given the undesiribility of such a regime, one must conclude that inequality of opportunity and of outcome are inevitable. What one can do is to introduce channels through which those who are able may advance into the upper eschelons of society and the economy, such as state-funded, academically selective schools (the abolition of which is a bugbear of mine, in my opinion a travesty equalled in devastating effect only by the dissolution of the monasteries). Of course, the Left complain that middle-class pupils from middle-class families will dominate grammar schools, since they will have taught their children to read at an early age, surrounded them with books, ensured they did their homework, helped them with maths problems and thoroughly prepared them for the 11+ exam. Well, none of this should come as a surprise, but neither should any of it be viewed as problematic: there is no underlying substratum called “raw intelligence” which may be accessed by secondary school and university admissions tutors if only every environmental factor could be stripped away – our upbringing and family culture is (almost) everything. However, what grammar schools cater for is the presence of high levels of ability without huge levels of wealth (something entirely possible in a world in which money is not linked inextricably to intelligence, take for example the comparatively low pay of university academics and teachers).
Returning to the core issue, I do believe that all people are created equal. By this I don’t mean that everyone is born with the same amount of money, the same opportunities, the same parental standards, the same intelligence, or the same physical size and strength. What I do mean is that every human individual has the right to life, liberty and property, the right to safety from threat of attack by criminals or foreign aggressors, the right to be treated as an end in their own right rather than as a means to an end, and even the right to to have a doctor attempt to save their lives regardless of the cost. I even believe (controversially) in the universal right to be born. However, when governments adopt their own vision of what equality means, it has much the same effect as when governments adopt their own understanding of the meaning of any moral principle (tolerance and freedom leap to mind) – utter disaster. I shall finish with a quote from an unexpected source, the author and Oxford academic Professor JRR Tolkien:
“I am not a ‘democrat’, if only because ‘humility’ and ‘equality’ are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power – and then we get and are getting slavery.”
Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” (my light summer reading) is very good on this. See Chapter Three, “The Common Sense of Progress”, particularly the section “Progress and Inequality”.
He quotes H. C. Wallich, “Conservative Economic Policy”, Yale Review XLVI (1956). 67: “From a dollars-and-cents point of view, it is quite obvious that over a period of years, even those who find themselves at the short end of inequality have more to gain from faster growth than from any conceivable income redistribution. A speedup in real output of only one extra per-cent per year will soon lift even the economically weakest into income brackets to which no amount of redistribution could promote them… For the economist, economic inequality acquires a functional justification thanks to the growth concept. Its ultimate results benefit even those who at first seem to be losers.”
There are three kinds of equality I can think of. Equality of outcome, equality of opportunity, and equality before the law.
Equality of outcome (material equality) is incompatible with equality before the law (treating everyone equally). You can’t make people materially equal without treating them unequally.
Equality of opportunity is a reasonable argument for a limited amount of state intervention, to increase opportunity for those without, not to decrease it for those with, and it must be done carefully to avoid unintended consequences like the poverty trap.
Your Tolkien quote reminded me of this one, from F.D. Wormuth’s “The Origins Of Modern Constitutionalism”:
“It is doubtful that democracy could survive in a society organized on the principle of therapy rather than judgment, error rather than sin. If men are free and equal, they must be judged rather than hospitalized.”
[...] first step must be to allow private hospitals to join the NHS. We must allow anyone to take their treatment cost to a private hospital. If they can find better treatment elsewhere, [...]
We are all born equal, with the same rights to share the planet as everyone else. Equality should be natural, we should seek to help others as it is only as a collective that we can strive to achieve more as a race. Inequality only serves to drive a wedge between people and to create poverty. Poverty can only be assessed when viewing it in relation to wealth or power, if everyone was truly equal there would be no poverty. However, I am not saying that true equality is possible, it is an ideal of course that would not work in practice and is only an idea. However, I disagree with the pseudo-capitalist states that we live in, and the attitudes of the wealthy and powerful, as well as many right-wing values. We live in a society where true capitalism does not feature, thus the main principles of the ideology do not work. Competition is a major feature in capitalism and serves to ensure that companies, organisations, services and products compete in a free market to drive prices to a competitive level and ensure quality and customer satisfaction. However we are living in societies that are run by private monopolies over important institutions such as the media in particular. The balance of power is not balanced, and the gap between the wealthy and the poor grows ever more. Human selfishness will be the destruction of societies, as those in a position of power look after themselves and their own, rather than the good of the people. We should be helping others and making sure the balance of power lies in the hands of the many, not the few. Equality is a birth-right, not something to debate over. The standard of living should only be considered for the mass population, many are still living in poverty and do not have the same opportunities as others. We are living in a world where unchecked capitalism allows global organisations to exceed the power of governments and indeed the law, but even more worrying is the blatant disregard for human rights and the violations that occur in third world countries, for example Texaco’s (now Chevron) actions in Ecuador. I understand this is not in direct relation to the argument of equality but it is a clear example of how the western world’s attitudes to others is damaging this planet and it’s people. If we are all born equal, but with unequal opportunities, then there is a problem with the system and indeed attitudes of many.
This article states: “What will improve people’s lives most in the future is the creation of more wealth. Inequality doesn’t matter”. This is a prime example of negative right-wing attitudes that serve to reinforce and justify the inequalities in the system and once again place credence in wealth. The answer for those of this view is wealth, that the increased accumulation of finance will, in the long-run, serve to improve standards of living. While this may be true, it is still very damaging to the mass populous and allows capitalism to go unchecked. I say unchecked because as shown time and time again, once a company/organisation reaches a level of wealth and power it becomes very difficult to place regulations and hold them to the law. It is time for our attitudes to begin to change and to stop believing the wealth is always the answer, because it is our attitudes and values that are important and are of more wealth than mere financial power. If we do not change our values and continue to fight inequality, then we have become cold-hearted. The human race should sustain itself and work together, because in the end monetary gain is not the answer to everything and is causing a lot of damage to the world and its people.
Hi Louis. I’m afraid that the content of your comment is either meaningless buzzphrases, or meaningful but just plain wrong. I’ll focus on the wrong bits.
“is only as a collective that we can strive to achieve more as a race”. False. Look at Ethiopia, where all land is nationalised and they still have regular famines. Or Venezuala, where Hugo Chavez contrived to create a coffee shortage and then an energy shortage. In Venezuala! Or the collectivised farms in early Soviet Russia causing famine and killing millions of people. A very good rule of thumb is that the more collectivised a society, the less progress.
“Inequality only serves to… create poverty.” No it doesn’t. For a start, there is no logical reason why inequality would create poverty. Furthermore, inequality is a consequence of wealth-creation. If we are creating wealth and reducing poverty, there will be inequality. Paul Graham argues this here: http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
“in a modern democracy, variation in income is actually a sign of health”
“if everyone was truly equal there would be no poverty”. Utter nonsense. Can’t you imagine a society where everyone was perfectly equal and extremely poor? Just as we can conceive of a society where everyone is perfectly equal and extremely rich. There is no connection whatever between equality and wealth.
“it is an ideal of course that would not work in practice”. Theories that “work in theory but not in practice” are called WRONG theories.
I agree with you that lack of competition is bad. The answer is: more competition!
“We are living in a world where unchecked capitalism allows global organisations to exceed the power of governments and indeed the law… I say unchecked because as shown time and time again, once a company/organisation reaches a level of wealth and power it becomes very difficult to place regulations and hold them to the law.” Nonsense. Examples of corporations behaving atrociously in the third world are enabled by bad governments. Name me a corporation which is sovereign.
“This article states: ‘What will improve people’s lives most in the future is the creation of more wealth. Inequality doesn’t matter’. This is a prime example of negative right-wing attitudes that serve to reinforce and justify the inequalities in the system and once again place credence in wealth. The answer for those of this view is wealth, that the increased accumulation of finance will, in the long-run, serve to improve standards of living. While this may be true, it is still very damaging to the mass populous and allows capitalism to go unchecked.” Have you any arguments against my claim that “What will improve people’s lives most in the future is the creation of more wealth. Inequality doesn’t matter”? It’s true, isn’t it. What will improve people’s lives most in the future is the creation of more wealth.
A friend of mine on healthcare: “I always go private. I could use the NHS, but I don’t need to. It would be mean of me to deprive someone else of an operation.” Shock horror! An example of something increasing inequality but having positive outcomes for all parties!
From the excellent http://paulgraham.com/gap.html , which I recommend reading in full:
“Will technology increase the gap between rich and poor? It will certainly increase the gap between the productive and the unproductive…
the rate at which technology increases our productive capacity is probably polynomial, rather than linear. So we should expect to see ever-increasing variation in individual productivity as time goes on. Will that increase the gap between rich and the poor? Depends which gap you mean.
“Technology should increase the gap in income, but it seems to decrease other gaps. A hundred years ago, the rich led a different kind of life from ordinary people. They lived in houses full of servants, wore elaborately uncomfortable clothes, and travelled about in carriages drawn by teams of horses which themselves required their own houses and servants. Now, thanks to technology, the rich live more like the average person.”
“I’d like to propose an alternative idea: that in a modern society, increasing variation in income is a sign of health. Technology seems to increase the variation in productivity at faster than linear rates.”
“If you suppress variations in income, whether by stealing private fortunes, as feudal rulers used to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be the same. Society as a whole ends up poorer.”
“If I had a choice of living in a society where I was materially much better off than I am now, but was among the poorest, or in one where I was the richest, but much worse off than I am now, I’d take the first option. If I had children, it would arguably be immoral not to. It’s absolute poverty you want to avoid, not relative poverty. If, as the evidence so far implies, you have to have one or the other in your society, take relative poverty.
You need rich people in your society not so much because in spending their money they create jobs, but because of what they have to do to get rich. I’m not talking about the trickle-down effect here. I’m not saying that if you let Henry Ford get rich, he’ll hire you as a waiter at his next party. I’m saying that he’ll make you a tractor to replace your horse.”
Anyway, all this is distracting from the article, which is specifically about the NHS. It clearly shows that the “principles” of the NHS, pursuing equality instead of quality, are leading to unnecessary, preventable deaths.
[...] a disease, lose all their NHS treatment whatsoever for that disease. This is madness. This is evil. This is killing people. And for what? For [...]