Equality Without Choice
Let producers produce!
Not a day goes by without hearing someone argue for the merits of “equality”.
It’s on the news, the internet, in the coffee shops, the schools, and pretty much everywhere. Equality is a topic beloved by “big media”, they know it consistently draws views and arguments. Engagement Farming 101.
On the political Left, Equality is really a combination of the 3 holy tenets of their ideology, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and can be found discussed extensively in their holy texts (The Feminine Mystique, Capital in the Twenty First Century, Sisterhood is Powerful, and most recently, Abundance etc.). The problem is, equality doesn’t actually exist in nature, or society, and can only be created by artificially propping up or pushing down certain attributes of people and things. Quite simply, there is always an advantaged and a disadvantaged party in any transaction.
I read somewhere on this platform “Forced Equality is just totalitarianism under soft and fluffy pretenses”.
The point the author was making is that a forced outcome is still forced, and anti-individual, no matter how you tell the story. It isn’t natural, and it’s actually more unfair than just letting things run their course. If 5 people run a race, the person who comes in 1st place deserves the trophy and praise, right? Equality says no, everyone must win a trophy, and be rewarded simply for their participation.
The first argument I hear coming from the peanut gallery is “you’re missing the point John, we want equal OPPORTUNITY, not equality of outcome”.
But one must see the slippery slope inherent in that concept.. right? “Equal opportunity” turned out to be a Trojan horse that allows the Equality People to manipulate the playing field in a way that gives them an undeserved advantage over the people that have been beating them in races for years. In the name of kindness and “fairness”, we created a way to gain an advantage over people with better work ethics, and inherent built-in abilities like good genes.
“So what? Who cares if we give the disadvantaged a little boost?”
In an isolated incident, like middle school sports, it doesn’t actually really matter. It becomes an issue when that same attitude infects an entire system, and becomes built in to our motivation/reward systems.
The guy who can build 3 widgets per day should be rewarded better than the guy who can only build 1. That is, if you even want society to have more widgets, for cheaper... Equality says that if Guy 2 is part of a “protected class” of people, he is actually unable to build more widgets in a day because he’s “oppressed” by “the system”, and doesn’t have the same advantages that allow Guy 1 to make more widgets, and should be paid the same while also being applauded for his bravery.
Guy 1 says “that’s bullshit!” and proceeds to go into a different line of work, where he has the chance to outperform others based on how hard he works, and how creative he gets. Winners want to win, they have an inherent desire to compete and produce.
“Forced Equality” systems and businesses attract the absolute worst types of workers, and frustrate the more competitive people who want the chance to do better than others based on the amount of work done. To restrict a competitive, Type A, killer instinct producer to a forced equality type system is more unfair on so many levels than the other way around. Not only does it hurt the individual, it also robs all of society of the benefits gained from their better performance. Guy 1 should be rewarded and praised for putting together his 3 widgets, because those widgets are being sent out into the world to make things that improve lives. Chances are, with the right incentives, he could probably put together 5 widgets, or even figure out a more efficient method of designing and producing widgets that would allow 2 men to do the work of 5.
Obviously this is a very oversimplified example, the real world is far more complex and messy.
My point, in general, is that competition is good. “Equal opportunity” is just “forced reduction of output” restated cleverly.
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Now, to be fair (lol), let’s take the other side of the argument for a sec.
The reason we have things like Affirmative Action in the first place is that some people are born with such astronomically large advantages that to even give someone a chance at partially closing the gap, there need to be guardrails in place to avoid monopolization by a single “type” of person. This ensures that we don’t have one specific class of person that control the entire capital supply, and use it to force others into indentured servitude. Expansion of personal freedom is a general positive in my eyes.
Slavery has always existed throughout human history. The Labor Class has always been exploited to some degree. Nearly every powerful nation for the last few thousand years utilized slave labor to build their cities and roads, bolster their armies, and fight for their entertainment. Usually, but not always, the slaves were of a different “class” (not always meaning race) of people, and had some sort of physical differentiator that made it “easy” for the ruling population to justify their mistreatment. Commonly, they would point to some physical difference in an attempt to dehumanize another people. White doctors in the colonial era spent decades trying to prove that “the negro” had a smaller and less powerful brain than the white due to their race. We know now, definitively, that it was all bullshit. Homo Sapiens is Homo Sapiens, with plenty of variation within the species, but race alone doesn’t bless/curse you with a larger/smaller brain. We rightfully did away with the whole slave trade thing for the most part in the beginning of the 19th century (Britain first in 1808, quickly followed by ‘Merica later that year). It took all of the other powerful civilized nations decades to follow suit, but was eventually agreed upon as a universally bad thing, thankfully.
Sadly, wasteful discrimination based on stupid things like race, religion, and country of origin does happen. While rare these days (yes, it is, things have literally never been more progressive, go read more history if you don’t believe me), it exists. I’m reminded of the “Irish need not apply” notice in an early 20th century newspaper job listing. Ideally, we want it to be possible for the most qualified candidate to get the position best suited to their talents, regardless of the things listed above. Three candidates, one Black, one White, one Asian, of the exact same credentials should be given equal chance to prove themselves worthy of a position.
Thing is, the world doesn’t work that way. There are no 2 exact same scenarios, candidates, histories, attitudes, demeanors, or anything really. Even identical twins are going to have some sort of quirks or differences develop over time. Culture and environment have a spectacular effect on human beings.
The academic world attempts to standardize this, through test scores and applications. They are slowly learning that there’s simply no “fair” way to do it. There will always be someone disproportionately excluded for some reason or another, they’d just prefer to smile in your face and pat themselves on the back for being “equitable” while they deny your application.
Avoiding unnecessary discrimination is at the core of all modern liberal thinking, and has shaped most of the progressive outlook for the last 20 years. In mild scenarios, it’s no big deal, and occasionally beneficial. Unfortunately, we just love to take things too far. We’ve run it to the point where the “anti-discrimination” laws are actually just “discrimination” laws, but in favor of the people advocating for them. Follow the money…
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The best chance we have to make life awesome for the largest amount of people possible is to vigorously reward excellence, and encourage people to strive for outstanding badassery. On the flip, mediocrity should be ignored, not cheered for as “brave” or “valid”.
The Excellent and The Badass will create outsized returns for everyone, encourage others to join them in the quest for awesomeness, and improve life nationwide (dare I say worldwide?). The hope is, I suppose, that people will be inspired to emulate that same awesomeness, and that the culture of the country will become one of winning, and success. If everyone freeloads and grifts, the whole thing falls apart VERY quickly.
We must stop trying to force equality simply for its own sake. Let the 1% of producers do what they do best, and punish the lying equality grifters.