Is the role of government to provide equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome? They are mutually exclusive.
Equality of opportunity necessarily means inequality of outcome. People are not born with equal ability, equal circumstances, and equal luck.
Equality of outcome necessarily means individual success must either be prevented or appropriated back to the average, so that others may be lifted.
Which is more fair? Much depends on how fairness is understood.
Fairness is proportionality. The Left (progressives), who rely on the moral foundations related to Compassion, tend to view proportionality in terms of outcomes, therefore disproportionate wealth accumulation is seen as unfair. The Right (conservatives), who rely on moral foundations related to both Compassion and social Harmony, tend to view proportionality in terms of effort, so wealth unevenly distributed yet proportionate to effort is fair.
Where the two find common ground is opposing wealth accumulated not by effort, but by cheating, illegallity, gaming of the system, political manipulation, etc.. Wrongful wealth is universally seen as unfair. Wrongful wealth violates equality of outcomes and equality of opportunity.
Few people would take equality of opportunity so far as to insure that each citizen received exactly the same amount of society’s production. Most people favor equality of opportunity unless the results become so unbalanced they cross some undefined line representing that person’s perception of fairness. This line often involves a sense that not only are the have not’s under participating in the nations wealth, but are prevented from rising. The cure is actions to improve the equality of opportunity. Affirmative action is an example.
It’s important to note that this equality question is not a social welfare question. Social welfare refers to a safety net of services a society makes available to individual’s who are not able to care for themselves, either temporarily or permanently.
Much is written today about historical levels of income/wealth inequality. The root cause is not really income per se, but wealth in the form of stocks, bonds, and real estate; capital assets. Those individuals who are experiencing large gains in wealth are people who hold capital assets.
Goods and services are produced with labor and capital. The costs of production are divided between labor and capital in some ratio. What we are experiencing now is a monumental shift in this ratio. By example, numbers used to be added up by people (labor) using adding machines. Now number are added up by computers (capital). In the adding up business, labor lost income and those who owned stock in the computer companies gained. Repeat the implementation of technology across the entire economy, and there has to be a huge shift of income from labor toward capital.
The news is now delivered in real time via the internet. Newspapers, and all the people it takes to print and deliver them, are in trouble. Should we punish or reward those who invested in the internet? There were once 2000 commercial ice plants in the U.S., delivered to your home by iconic ice trucks if you put out your “Ice Today” sign. Home refrigeration ruined the ice business. We are experiencing some type of this phenomenon across almost all sectors of the economy.
Given the massive shift, we are bound to have a period of excess labor. This means wages must stagnate (they already have) or even fall. And it isn’t anyones fault because nothing is wrong.
For many this will feel “unfair”. After all, it is not their fault the ice business is going away, but it is their fault they can’t pay the mortgage. In a sense they are the victims of a calamity, not the victims of an injustice. If society wants to alleviate their circumstances, it is important to understand we would be providing social welfare to unfortunate victims of a calamity, not correcting some fatal flaw in how income is distributed. With this distinction we can have a civil conversation that honors the Left’s Compassion along with the Right’s interest in Harmony.
I guess I would say that the state attempts to–very roughly– level the playing field of circumstance through the consent of the governed, which waxes and wanes between liberal and conservative poles. Elections are
endlessly about tax policy, and politicians will be forever warring about whether the national wealth is flowing
too strongly towards the upper or lower registers of the electorate. The question of the relative social
obligations of the state to ameliorate inequalities of circumstance is the meat and potatoes of the
democractic process. The Europeans have generally moved left on this question, and we have moved more
to the right. But the question itself remains firmly embedded in the electoral to and fro–I can’t see that
changing. Liberals would say that if the state does not address systemic, pervasive inequalities of
circumstance, then who will? No non-state actor has the interest and/or scope to take on this problem.
Capitalism creates wealth but also inequality, and tax policy is a blunt instrument of regulating the flow
of wealth so those inequalties hopefull don’t become too distorted.
Agree regarding inequality of circumstance, that current politics is concerned with ameliorating differences in circumstance. But why is equalizing differences in circumstance an obligation of society? The precursor question is, on what authority does government use it’s coercive taxing authority to appropriate the private property of it’s citizens in the name of correcting governments perception of an inequality in circumstance? The consent of the governed? The social contract? Natural law? Hence the foundational dynamic, should governments role be to provide equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome?
One thing is clear so far, socialism was a reaction to capitalism. An effort to tame it’s excesses. I think this effort falls into two categories, economics and distribution. Regarding economics, I think the dispute is largely settled (Krugman notwithstanding), markets should be free, but require regulation to maintain a fair playing field. State ownership of the means of production is off the table. There does remain a disagreement regarding government intervention during times of crises, as in Keynes vs. Friedman. The real differences regard the distribution of wealth…
While still early in the quest, my developing picture looks something like this. The American constitution was an effort to balance tyranny and anarchy. Too much government = tyranny, too little = anarchy. Hence the constitution attempts to narrowly define the scope of the federal government, all others powers reserved to the states, or to the people. Coinciding with then contemporary socialist theories developed to correct the excesses of capitalism, the US legalized the income tax in 1913 and expanded the meaning of the General Welfare Clause during the New Deal and upset the original constitutional balance. The result has been a continuous march toward more and more government.
I don’t think equality of oppurtunity and outcome are in practice as mutually
exclusive as you suggest. As ideals, yes. But enforced equality of outcome leads ideally to Marxism,
which is of course a dead letter for everyone, liberal or not. Most would agree also that differences
in abilty and luck will naturally lead to–often radical–differences in outcome. Circumstance is the rub.
I think it very difficult to suggest that anything remotely like equality of circumstance exists in this
country. So politics is the ongoing never to be completed process of ameliorating differences in
circumstance, recognizing that a pure equality of outcome will not and cannot happen. The progressive
tax code is one instrument of this project, the revenues from taxes going at least partially for education
and health care benefits for those on the short end of the circumstance stick.