What’s so Great about Equality of Opportunity ?
I think this post by Dylan Matthews is brilliant and a must read.
He says we should focus less on equality of opportunity and more on average outcomes and equality of outcomes.
When you say Dylan he thinks you’re talking about Dylan Thomas (whoever he was), man he ain’t got no respect for posts on ethics and public policy.
Don’t trust this summary, but I think Matthews denounces the focus on equality of opportunity with independent devastating arguments. He argues that achieving perfect equality (of outcome or opportunity) is impossible and any attempt would involve horrible costs. He argues against levelling — if one thinks only of equality then one must prefer reduced opportunity for some with no increase for any. He argues that different outcomes based only on ability can be unfair. He even argues that outcomes based only on effort can be unfair. He argues for less inequality of outcomes. Finally, he argues that we can achieve decent outcomes for all and so we are obliged to do so
I agree with all of these arguments. I have to admit that I think I have been making all of them for 4 decades now (give or take a year).
I write this post, because I think I might have a couple of minor points to add.
First, I think the discussion of perfect equality is a red herring. No one argues for perfect equality of opportunity of outcome. Few can resist the temptation to argue with a straw man who argues for perfect equality of some sort. Even Matthews can’t. There is a silly equivocation in the phrase “I believe in equality” which can mean either, a) “for average outcomes the same, I would rather they be more equal” or “I believe that equality is the only thing that matters, so any equal outcome no matter how horrible is better than any unequal one.” In practice “i believe in equality” is interpreted the first way and “you foolishly believe in equality” the other. This is an example of a false dichotomy — an error of thought more common than any other error of thought or any valid method of reasoning. Equality can be good without being the only good thing — a goal without being the only goal.
Second, since the case against a focus on equality of opportunity is very strong, why do so many people talk about equality of opportunity so much ? I am firmly convinced that most are arguing in bad faith. Mathews notes the strikingly broad ideological spectrum of advocates of equality of opportunity — from Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson to Paul Ryan. I believe it is often invoked by people who really care about equality of outcome exactly because equality of opportunity is such a slippery concept that it can be interpreted in exactly opposite ways.
I think it is clear (as argued by Matthews) that we can’t have equal opportunities for one generation without equal outcomes for the previous one. In practice a sincere effort to provide equality of opportunity, must involve assistance to the poor until there are no more poor. This means that people who wish to reduce inequality of outcome can say they are reducing inequality of opportunity. If there were an equal generation some of whose children obtained poverty through single minded laziness, then FDR and LBJ would have a problem. I am not surprised that they didn’t lose any sleep over that danger.
Exactly because “we must have equality of opportunity even if we accept inequality of outcome” is nonsense, egalitarians can say that without paying a political cost. By claiming that they would accept some hypothetical impossible form of inequality, they can fight real world inequality. They can convince some people that they have made a concession without conceding anything.So they do.
Similarly anti-egalitarians find the nonsense distinction useful (and I am sure that Ryan is against equality — even if he isn’t Ayn Rand certainly was). They say “not equality of opportunity rather equality of opportunity”. This too is impossible. But that way they can pretend they are in favor of equality of some sort, while fighting for inequality. They can convince some people that they have made a concession without conceding anything. So they do.
I don’t understand why anyone falls for either argument, but I am sure that most people who have thought seriously about the issues don’t and are arguing in bad faith
I write more nasty things about Paul Ryan after the jump.
Ryan’s argument is an extreme example of a false dichotomy — an error of thought more common than any other error of thought or any valid method of reasoning. He argues “equality of opportunity not equality of outcome” insinuating that one can’t be for both. He can’t argue that if one is for equality of opportunity one must be against equality of outcome. That is nonsense. Equality of opportunity might mean outcomes depend only on effort, or might mean that outcomes depend only on effort and ability. But in either case, it doesn’t mean that different levels of effort (or effort and ability) must lead to different outcomes. A constant function is a function. I think anti-egalitarians who talk about equality of opportunity believe that fairness requires different levels of effort should lead to different outcomes. This might be a true statement about right and wrong, but it isn’t required for equality of opportunity.
Anti egalitarians who say they are for equality of opportunity often ignore the meaning of the word equality. I won’t provide a link, but I am sure I have read people argue that there is equality of opportunity because it is possible to overcome poverty. This argument is based on based on a false dichotomy — an error of thought more common than any other error of thought or any valid method of reasoning. The implicit assumption is that overcoming poverty must be impossible or as easy as it should be. The intermediate claim that it is possible but we are morally obliged to make it easier isn’t refuted — it is ignored.
Finally note “generation” — I am very sure that people have incoherent views on what entities are to have equality of opportunity. No one can argue that each person has equal opportunities at birth. But people argue that it’s only fair that those who have worked hard all their life can do something for their children. So the entities which should have equal opportunities are families (really technically called dynasties by economists). No one can argue that White and Black dynasties have had the same opportunity in America since they arrived. The unit is the individual when they want to argue that we should look only at the present not the past. The unit is the family when they call the inheritance tax a death tax. I do not think it is possible to reconcile the arguments. I don’t think anyone who didn’t find both useful could find both convincing.
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Gee Robert,
metaphysics aside, it sure sounds to me like those who argue for equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome mean that any poor black person is free to take the SAT’s and get admitted to Harvard on the strength of his scores, not to say recommendations from alumni.
What they are afraid of is people who sure seem to be saying we must tax the rich until they have no more money that the poor… and of course give the poor that money until they are equal with the rich.
Glad you agree that both are … uh, ill thought out. But I am not so sure they are disingenuous. Poor thought explains a lot… even from Harvard graduates.
Equality of opportunity never seems to include the safety, comfort, education, and healthcare of the beginnings as a starting point.
If I may point out two errors, and then please delete this comment:
1) ‘No one argues for perfect equality of opportunity of outcome.’
— That should say, ‘opportunity or outcome.’
2) ‘They say “not equality of opportunity rather equality of opportunity”.’
— I think you meant, ‘They say, “Not equality of outcome, rather equality of opportunity.”‘
I believe that “Equality of Opportunity” is a shorthand, and is primarily directed toward equality of opportunity which is provided by the government.
Public schools, for instance. A child should have reasonably equivalent schools no matter what school district he is in. He should not have a higher probability of arrest and conviction if he is Black.
Government-imposed equality upon those things which are not equal becomes tyranny. It is not the government’s job to protect people from themselves.
actually Warren
a government is like a community, and a community does have an interest in protecting people from themselves… if for no other reason than when they hurt themselves the community has to take care of them.
but what you think of as protecting people from themselves turns out to be protecting them from the predators among us.
this has been true as long as humans have been human, and longer than that.
When we were younger we go around saying “that was not fair”. When we get older we learn and realize that “nothing is fair”. Also if one really wants to get ahead in life one must go out and earn it. That’s fair. There is no such thing as a free lunch unless you were born on third base then that is unfair. So for the 99% of us we must earn our fairness through hard work and perseverance. Is that fair? Or must we all have to support those who are too lazy to support themselves does not sound fair…I once knew this blonde girl with big blue eyes, she was fair to me. I think that the notion of fairness of opportunity and protecting me from myself sounds fair to me and should be fair game…
Opps! I forgot to mention the very good read today (6-12-16) over at The Daily Kos.com “Reading Thomas Pickety” sheds much needed light on income and wealth inequality. I think this is the unfairness of opportunity you are more referring to…
“[A] government is like a community, and a community does have an interest in protecting people from themselves.”
But a government is NOT a community. A community does things voluntarily. The people volunteer their time, talents, and money to provide for its members. I even grew up in a city with a volunteer fire department.
And what can the government do for people that the community cannot do?
Government, especially at the national level, is supposed to do those things the community cannot do, such as FEMA, IHS, NASA, and FDA. But there are free clinics and charitable hospitals for healthcare. There are food banks and homeless shelters.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch unless you were born on third base then that is unfair.”
Why do you say that? Someone worked very hard to put his child or grandchild on third base, so how is it unfair?
Change the analogy — is it unfair that the last legs of a relay do not start at the same time? One may start of well ahead of the others. Is it unfair that those on his team ran harder and faster than the others?
“[What you think of as protecting people from themselves turns out to be protecting them from the predators among us.”
Not at all. Is it “predatory” to fire a lazy worker who never shows up on time? Is it “predatory” to hire people with better grades?
Warren:
Have you ever considered thinking about what you would like to say and combining your thoughts into one reply? A little nesting goes a long way in getting your point across.
I definitely agree with run.
For those really interested in learning and reading about inequality of income, wealth and opportunity go see todays (6-9-16) EPI.org “Progressive Redistribution Without Guilt” from John Bivens, He provides an excellent study on why it is not just a “growth only” solution to a major societal problem…
Warren
i phrased that badly. every community has a government even if it’s only dad with his big club. you cannot have “government.” people living together find they have to make decisions affecting each other.
sometimes those decisions involve making the community bigger where the informal “government” won’t work and gives way to formal government. you can have government as rule by the biggest predators or attempt to have rule by democracy.
turns out every democracy evolves rules to protect people from the predators. meanwhile the predators complain about “government.”
you have been brainwashed by the predators propaganda. in an informal government you would be taken out in the woods and left there to enjoy your “freedom.”
or at least you would if you acted the way you talk.
as it happens i don’t much like some of the rules my neighbors come up with, but it’s been a long time since i thought the answer was to say “the government shouldn’t make rules.”
meant to say “you cannot NOT have government.
How about American kids — rich and poor; er, uh, there wouldn’t be many poor left — having equality of opportunity with, say, German kids …
… where the entire workforce is represented in the market by labor unions — centralized bargaining, the gold standard that we so desperately need here, heavily in force?
A little mind sticker I’ve been pushing recently — because it really gets around the “we-can’t-talk-about (making union busting a felony — beginning at progressive state level)-it-because-nobody-else-is-talking-about-it/even-though-we’d-be-all-for-it-if-everybody-was-already-discussing-it- syndrone:
A 100% rich country workforce in a labor union-free market will have a lower wage level than a 50% rich country (e.g., American born) /50% poor country (e.g., everywhere else born) workforce in a collective bargaining run market.
Also 100,000 out of my guesstimate 200,000 Chicago, gang-age males would be stacking shelves instead of standing look-out if most of today’s $400/wk low-skilled jobs paid $800/wk. IOW, a split workforce w/no collective bargaining leads to 1929 level unemployment for low skilled American born (and multiplying shoot-outs).
P.S. (off topic) I’d like to see minimum wages $16-17 (inn 2016 dollars) five years out — not $13.50 (after inflation takes its cut).
As a landlord, I’ve reached a few unhappy conclusions. The day you learn that one of your Section 8 tenants, a young, unmarried, unemployed mother of 3, drives a 60K car and has nicer furniture than you do, is the day you reach some unfortunate epiphanies. This includes the realization that no equality of either opportunity or outcomes is possible unless society takes on attitudes toward parenthood and child-rearing that are very, very far beyond the pale as far as the middle class on the right and the left would deem acceptable today. The three children of the tenant in my example will not have a decent start in life no matter what resources are expended on them through transfer programs, as those resources will simply be wasted by their mother. And to the best of my knowledge, their mother fell victim to the same behavior by her mother before her. (And no, no fathers are in the picture.)
Now, that isn’t true of most poor parents, but from my limited experience as a landlord it is disproportionately true of those having the most offspring.
It is a heart breaking thing to see. And I don’t have a solution.
Mike,
Your anecdotal tenant is mysteriously similar to the mythical “welfare queens” spoken of a few generations past. The lady may have income that is not readily apparent to you. Off the books, legal or otherwise. I can tell you this, if you own a $60K car and you paid cash the only law she may be breaking are those related to her application for and acceptance of government support programs. If she borrowed or leased she definitely had to demonstrate ability to pay and past history of willingness to pay. Car finance companies are not flexible in that regard, though there are certainly ways to fudge that info.
In general outcome trumps opportunity though it usually flows from same. No pun intended on the use of trump, but he’s an excellent example. See long article in today’s NY Times reviewing Trumps performance in Atlantic City. Plenty of chutzpah, but little sign of competence. Having a fall back in the form of daddy Fred can put a lot of steam into the engine, but it’s still just vapor. That’s how wealth works. If you or mom and dad have it, it “naturally” flows your way. Little Chelsea is an excellent example. That’s one of the Clinton flaws. They just can’t seem to avoid people who want throw great gobs of money their way. It’s as American as the Standard Oil Company.
Jack,
Again, based on my limited experience as a landlord, there are people who will spend every time that comes their way immediately. That certainly doesn’t apply to all poor people, but the poor people with the least amount of self-control when it comes to money also often seem to end up with the most children.
The woman in the example I mentioned – well, there is a drug dealer who drifts in and out of the picture. I understand he is currently incarcerated. My guess is that the tenant was dead broke when she went on section 8, was dead broke ten minutes before the drug dealer gave her the vehicle, and was dead broke ten minutes after. And if he gives her more money, or she wins $250 million on the lottery, she will be dead broke ten minutes after that too. Nothing gets hidden, but everything gets spent. Her kids don’t stand a chance, and while it isn’t their fault, it isn’t society’s fault either.
Mike:
You found one person like this and then you say people. Sounds like a pink CTS Cadillac dog whistle to me. People must mean there is more than one with a drug pusher as her support.
Jack,
I should add that from what I can tell, the drug dealer is permanently broke too.
Coberly, you keep talking about these “predators,” but I do not see you provide concrete examples of such predators and how laws attempting to equalize opportunity thwart said predators.
Please give examples.
And to please R&D….
“[Sometimes] those decisions involve making the community bigger where the informal ‘government’ won’t work and gives way to formal government.”
WON’T work? Again, I ask for some examples. I provided some. You want everyone to have healthcare. We have free clinics and charity hospitals. No-one should go hungry. We have food banks.
The crux of the matter is WON’T vs. CAN’T. If the people WON’T do something that they CAN DO, then the people do not WANT to do it. If the people CAN’T do it, then they form a government to do it.
Concrete example of predators for Warren: white people in America, very clearly up until a few decades ago. Whites in America used a thousand formal and informal ways to keep African Americans poor. If that wasn’t the grand strategic intention it was clearly the result of the thousand little ways. So now white people like me have, on average, way more wealth and opportunity than black Americans. I include myself even though my dad grew up without running water and was the first in his family to go to college. But he could do that because his father, my grandfather, was able to work his way up in the local bank and become its president (they had running water by then). And my dad could buy a house in a good neighborhood, and so on. So I’m far from rich, but I do have somewhat more wealth than a lot of African-Americans I know–and this anecdotal evidence is illustrative of the larger picture. Obviously, not all white people were predators–but as a group, they clearly were. Predatory behavior isn’t the whole story behind inequality, but denying that it exists is ridiculous. (So why did I waste my time writing this?!)
Eric:
Welcome to AB. First comments are always approved. We get a lot of spam at times.
Run,
The woman with the drug dealer drifting in and out of her life is the only tenant we have ever had who has, to our knowledge, any involvement with such a character. On the other hand, we tend not to deal much with Section 8 tenants because with Section 8, our experience has been, with one exception, quite negative.
Mike:
Its you. Anyone else, I would have been harsher in response. Thank you for your response. I would not have been so magnanimous.
Mike,
What you’ve learned from your Section 8 rental experience
, though I’m not sure you realize it, is that poverty is, for some, a debilitating experience. The effort to survive in the midst of the wealth of others is not generally an uplifting experience in spite of the myths of literature. A great many people who experience poverty in childhood do over come its most debilitating emotional affects. A smaller number get past the financial pain. Both groups are a small percentage of the entire population of the poor and the vast majority live their oppressive experience while avoiding a loss of personal disrespect. But yes, poverty can breed discontent in some who see that they have no stake in the economy and they look for any means to ameliorate poverties worst personal effects. That’s one of reasons why it would prove beneficial to all of us, our society in general, to reduce the increasingly extreme disparities of income and wealth distribution.
There’s a missing part of the phrase “equality of opportunity” that keeps being omitted though some may infer the missing parts but their inferences certainly differ from one person to the next.
The missing part of the phrase is “… to do [insert choice of actions].”
When one asserts that everybody at birth has the same opportunity they never complete the statement.
Begin with “obtain good nutrition” for example… the infant is not in control of obtaining good nutrition (or living in an apt. without lead paint on the walls for that matter).
Or say “obtain an adequate education” which must then be qualified by defining the adequacy in terms of its end effect. The educational opportunity to a child begins with what the parent or close relative or other close adult in their early childhood provides them to aid and increase their ability to learn or become more able to compete in early elementary grades (even kindergarten). This includes reading to them from books with pictures and words which provides both the child’s incentive to mimic that activity themselves, provides them a role model, and puts vocabulary and meaning to the words they hear which get embedded in their sponge brains. The very young pre-school chid is not in control of exercising that “opportunity”, and thus are not by any stretch of the imagination beginning their formal elementary education with an equal opportunity to learn.
There is another issue we fail to deal with when using the phrase “equal opportunity” which is that there is as is well known and documented a distribution of learning capability…. or complex problem solving or any human skill. Practice doesn’t always make perfect, which is to say the amount of effort applied doesn’t always equalize things.
So in terms of real humans there is no such thing as equality of opportunity. We all know this…. but then why do some people propagate the myth (I would call it propaganda) that there is even though they know full well there isn’t.
The answer I think is that by propagating the myth it excuses doing anything about improving equality of opportunity to the level that it also improves equalities of outcomes. It allows those who propagate this myth to then also say “Its their own fault” which absolves society of doing anything about the lack of equal opportunity in real terms… they mouth “equal opportunity”, but are opposed to do anything the lack thereof which they know full well is our societies problem.our is the about it.
Thus one must question first and foremost why those who continue to propagate the myth continue to do so. As I’ve come to discover the answer to this lies in “follow the money” reasons or also “follow the religious belief system” reasons.
Jack,
Over the decades, I’ve seen a few people from middle-class to upper-middle class gradually sink into poverty. The ones that can’t get out of it tend to have a few traits in common: non-conformity, belief in conspiracy theories, belief that nothing bad that happens to them is their fault, and, among males, the gift of gab. They also pass those attitudes on to their children.
By coincidence, among the tenants we have or had that were poor, the ones whose kids we concluded were likely to end up in that situation were people with precisely that same set of traits. The difference is that the poor who have those traits also seem to have more kids than the poor that don’t have those traits (and whose kids have a fighting chance of making their way out of poverty from what I can tell).
That isn’t to say those traits cause poverty, but rather that those traits do push people into poverty and into staying poor. Poor people without those traits can be helped successfully. So can their kids. Unfortunately, the people with those traits ruin it for their kids too.
I forgot the biggest trait – an inability to plan ahead. Most people, rich or poor, can do that. But the folks who cannot plan ahead simply do not ever succeed.
It might be a day at a time planning which is very distressing as there is no slack.
Center for Progress, Tom Hertz did a nice study on poverty and why it is difficult to escape.
“two aspects of economic mobility in the United States. The first is the question of intergenerational mobility, or the degree to which the economic success of children is independent of the economic status of their parents. A higher level of intergenerational mobility is often interpreted as a sign of greater fairness, or equality of opportunity, in a society.
The second aspect is the short-term question of the amount by which family incomes change from year to year. By studying short-term mobility we can determine whether incomes are rising or falling for families at different points in the income distribution. We can also determine whether the size of these income variations, or the level of annual income volatility, is changing over time. Increased volatility is undesirable to the extent that it represents an increase in economic insecurity.” https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/kf/hertz_mobility_analysis.pdf
Eric, if you really feel that way, I trust you are giving a large part of your ill-gotten wealth to the NAACP. Very commendable of you.
non sequitur remark on the NAACP. Further more, you are baiting someone to start a conversation on just that remark Warren.
Longtooth said
“increase their ability to learn or become more able to compete in early elementary grades (even kindergarten).”
compete
exactly what’s wrong with “education” in America. maybe what’s wrong with America. compete is okay in business and sports
but it destroys any possibility of “education,” not to say a sane society.
and no, i am not arguing for ignoring differences in “ability” or “talent” .
Mike
some of us nonconformists never wanted to get rich anyway.
We’re skipping over the most obvious aspect of the myth of equal opportunity, though run’s quotation of Hertz introduces the concept. Them that has get more. It’s a basic tenet of our social/economic system. You need capital in order to generate wealth. Child development is much the same. Good environmental conditions requires capital investment and leads to advantageous growth. This ain’t rocket science. If your family is fortunate enough to be generating excess income you are going to have a healthier and better educated childhood. As you enter adulthood as the scion of wealth you are going to be in contact with others who are of similar circumstances and those relationships are going to become the basis for a better life through the magic of I scratch your back and you scratch mine mind set.
Opportunity can’t be made to be equal other than being e
Coberly,
It’s not a matter of wanting to get rich or not. There is a vast chasm between not wanting to become an investment banker and not having an ability or willingness to plan ahead. Most poor and middle class people can plan ahead. But in my admittedly limited experience, the folks who can’t plan ahead don’t just repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot, they shoot their kids in the foot too.
Again, from my limited experience, kids with well adjusted parents usually turn out OK (rich or poor is different than OK and not OK) and kids with srlf-destructive parents often don’t. There are exceptions but they require the kid to reject the parent, and that is hard to do.
Hmm, that comment got posted before it was completed. My machine is playing tricks on me.
Opportunity can’t be made to be equal other than being equal within socio-economic levels. How is that not reasonably clear cut. We can only require that out comes are not the result of continuing abuses between those classes. That would be equality in bargaining for a share of the income and wealth that is generated within an economy. No one builds wealth on their own. We just need to have an economic system of laws that recognizes that fact and assures that exploitation is not a feature of the system.
“[Non] sequitur remark on the NAACP. Further more, you are baiting someone to start a conversation on just that remark Warren.”
But his remark was not? Interesting.
Jack
“assure that exploitation is not part of the system”
exactly.
there are some other things we could do, but they turn out to be enormously difficult. everytime someone sets out to improve education they make it worse.
“no equality of either opportunity or outcomes is possible unless society takes on attitudes toward parenthood and child-rearing that are very, very far beyond the pale … ”
I think that folks missed an important part of what Mike was saying. Stereotype or not, the level at which society (government) interferes with families is (usually) well below what would lead to equality of opportunity for many kids who are impacted by poverty.
Arne:
Which is what Hertz leads to in his study.
“giving a large part of your ill-gotten wealth ”
Is it really so awful that I can discern that Megan Ellison can do much more for people who have not been given adequate opportunities than I can by myself? Without a society willing to govern itself, she would not have gotten what she has. Why should not that society attempt to make sure that there are limits on what can be done with that largess?
Should she get to use it to lobby for changing the rules so she can gather in more? Coerced sharing to alleviate unequal conditions of opportunity or outcome is only a difference of degree.
Arne,
You stated my point on gov’t intervention better than I did. Thanks.
well, i don’t know who Megan Ellison is so I missed the point.
But I would worry if people took Arne to mean we should take kids away from their parents so we can raise them to be more “successful.”
and I would worry if Arne is saying the answer to the problem is to tax the rich and give the money to the experts on child raising.
FWIW I don’t think it’s just interference in impoverished families that might be needed/required to create “equal opportunities”.
When I was very young our family sometimes socialized with a much better off family friend of my mothers. Both parents worked at professional/management positions in large corporations unlike my parents who both had blue collar/service industry jobs most of my growing up years. As an adolescent I know I was pretty jealous of their nicer home, the backyard pool, the expensive toys etc.
But as the years and now decades have passed both of their kids have genuinely struggled with major drug and alcohol issues which contributed mightily to their difficulty staying employed and in stable relationships/marriages etc. This and similar stories evolved my understanding of how often being born on “third base” can often carry a great burden. Nobody expected much of anything to become of me so in some sense I was a lot freer to *exceed people’s expectations* which I think (along with an acknowledged fair amount of dumb luck) really helped me along to the comfortable life I now enjoy.
I think most of us meet people like this along the path. Individuals who were given much and sometimes not enough was expected. Or too much, It’s difficult to tell about the dynamics at a distance. But it’s not hard to find examples of people whose parents damaged them via blind indulgence even if those examples are statistically rarer.
And when I think about how this does and should affect public policy I can’t help noticing how much steeper things have gotten in the last 40 years since I entered full time work. If I am nostalgic about earlier times it’s not because opportunity was more equally distributed but more that there was a wider range of “small screwups” that one could recover from without permanently limiting one’s future chances.
I wish I knew a way to resist and reverse that tendency to make the “steps on the ladder” less steep and closer together; for one thing it would make me less worried for my nieces and nephews now struggling to find their own way. But the prevailing winds seem to be going against it. Just look at how Paul Ryan’s own opinions of the Social Security that educated him have evolved. Pulling the ladder up behind him, that one is.
am
okay. maybe.
sometimes.
but i know people who were neither neglected nor over indulged who failed in life.
human life is complex. don’t think you know someone because you know two things about him.
it’s the same kind of thinking that produces racism. and we all do it.
Social Security educated Paul Ryan?
Yes. He paid his out of state tuition with SS survivor benefits he received after his father passed away.
And what is his opinion on he survivor insurance part of Social Security?
I have pushing an article by Chris Dillow on exactly this issue for years. I particularly like his analogy about a raffle with severe booby prises.
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2006/10/against_equalit.html
reason
yes, it’s nice to read something that looks like human thought on the subject of equality. but i don’t think… that is i hope that not.. the people calling for EoP are calling for absolute EoP, but rather doing what we can today to reduce barriers to opportunity.
and that seems to be pretty much what we are already doing. while EoP seems to be a pure political slogan to get the votes of those who either are, or think they are, being held down because of their race, gender, orientation…
and i suppose that’s politics, but i am not comfortable with encouraging resentisment as the national psychology.
on the other hand, we really do need to do something about residual bigotry…. only shouting at them and parading what they are afraid of in their face doesn’t seem to be working.
Coberly,
I generally agree with what you are saying, but maybe we need to reframe the questions – is it more important to decide where we want to go in the end, or to decide which way is up?
Reason,
if I understand you..
the people who don’t know which way is up can’t be reached by “our” deciding.
what we can do…. is decide to take the next step in the direction we think is up. and i am afraid the next step is to find someone who agrees with us, and then think of a way to find someone else who agrees with us and then exactly what is the next possible step…
we would have to be careful of simple minded grand solutions that cause so much fear to the people who don’t yet agree with us that we end up going backwards.
Coberly,
yup, that is pretty much I what I meant. Continuous small improvements rather than grand ideological schemes. In other words, pragmatism.