One of the most damaging myths in modern politics is that all people are equal, or rather should be equal. While dead people are equal, equally dead, that is most certainly, most evidently not true in life. People very evidently have differing degrees of ability and people being what they are, the more able want to and do use their superior abilities or even extra opportunities to acquire extra wealth for themselves and their families. That is the reality and it is the unavoidable reality in the past, in the present and in the foreseeable future.
However many people don’t ‘pseudo-intellectually’ like this reality. This includes many who are themselves using the opportunity of living in a historically wealthy society or wealthy family or are using their own abilities to become or remain wealthy. So they imagine (sometimes as their career) a myth that people are inherently equal and should over time become economically equal – it is practically always over time so they themselves don’t have to become economically equal to everybody else forthwith! It is a nice, comforting myth for such people and it does wonders for their political conscience!
Indeed relatively recently in the West the goal of ‘equality of opportunity’ has morphed into the much more damaging goal of equality for all. Some of this is probably because ‘equality’ is nowadays seen less as a purely economic matter than it once was. Nowadays there are any number of grievance groups, such as racial groups (like people pronouncing ‘Black Lives Matter’) feminists, homosexual groups, disability groups and others. They complain about prejudice and social inequality against them. Then they complain secondarily or consequently of economic inequality. Indeed they often demand not just opportunity but financial help to create ‘equality’ for themselves. In calling for equality, they are (such as with many disabled groups and even women in relation to their physical strength and often abilities) often overlooking the practical unreality of achieving their ‘equality’. Nevertheless as ‘equality’ seems virtuous to them, they are not going to want practicality to get in their way. Yet in reality practicality does unavoidably get in the way.
In relatively recent times the theoretical mythology of human equality has been much fortified by ‘the equality industry’. This has created self-interested, often well paid, vested interest groups of people who are living quite privileged (unequal) lives as professionals within a new equality industry. The most obvious group in ‘the equality industry’ are politicians, originally leftist politicians but now increasingly even centrist and many supposedly right-wing politicians. However it is no longer just some politicians who are making a good living out of the equality industry. Seizing upon the virtue-signalling aspect of equality, many charities and charity workers have also got in on the act, not to mention think-tanks, equality or diversity officers and non-governmental organisations. Indeed virtue-signalling is a good way of raising money; the supposed virtue in it entices people to give money while people still live extravagantly by Third World standards!
Yet far from aiming for equality, people driven by human nature mostly pursue inequality(reflecting animal nature where, especially among males the instinctive aim in life is for dominance in their group, not equality). People want more wealth for themselves and favour prosperity for their family. That is all natural and rather instinctive.
It is a natural, probably a necessary part of the ethos of society that if one works harder and performs better one will get further and probably become wealthier in life. It is conveyed in schools that if one works harder or better one will get better marks and then better examination grades. That will mean one will advance further in the education system with better qualifications which will probably pave the way to getting a better job with more pay. In the world of work it is supposed if one works harder or more efficiently, one is more likely to get promoted to a better job or more pay. This is necessary to motivate people to take the worlds of education and work seriously and so make the spheres of education and employment function effectively.
This is the reality with paid work – in practice most people want as much money as they can readily get out of work, never mind any notions of equality. People such as medical doctors or even University teachers (educators) who are already paid unequally much more than most other people in their society want and argue and agitate for even more pay.
Yet it is very apparent from school onwards that people do not have equal but unequal abilities. Some children are better at reading, better at spelling, better at writing than others and this does not even always correspond with who works hardest.
Yet perhaps most noticeable of all, this is very applicable to sport. Nobody doubts that some players, say in a football team are much better than others. When people favour a team, far from believing in equality and equal ability between people, they fervently want their favoured team to win and indeed become Champions. They usually also believe their team can win and if they do not do so it is not because their inegalitarian belief in winning is wrong but because their Manager, or certain players are not talented enough and should be replaced by better ones. In today’s world they also very much believe it is foolish in a sport such as professional football not to pay huge sums of money to attract and keep the best players they want. Nobody is naive or foolish enough to believe the best players will play for a team if they don’t get massive amounts of money in pay. No true football fan thinks his team should resist such demands for colossal and unequal amounts of money for good players in the interests of equality in the world. What some football fans (and most academics) may not understand is that the inegalitarian principles upon which football teams are run and football success is founded are broadly applicable for the same reasons as in football not just to sport but also to the economy and to society as a whole.
What I am saying is that governance needs to be realistic in terms of being rational and achieving the best results for people. ‘Recognise reality’, human reality is my plea.
That reality is that though people may virtue-signal about equality, human beings are actually unequal and the true wish of most individual people is to surpass others in skill, even luck, maybe power and above all in income and wealth. That is generally why people study in school and University for good qualifications and usually why people are willing to work in demanding, skilled or risky jobs. That ambition, common to many people cannot be stopped without curtailing personal freedom, individual freedom within society in a repressive, totalitarian way. That historically has always happened in Communist countries supposedly dedicated to economic equality. Living within an unequal society accords with the grain of human nature and as it results in an overall benefit to society and to most individual people, political theorists should support it rather than attempt to go against or overcome this aspect of human nature. So people’s individual instincts towards personal inequality can and should be harnessed to the ultimate benefit of practically everybody in society in terms not only of civilisation (maybe producing great works) and technological comfort but most especially in enhancing the living standards of most people, albeit in an inegalitarian society.
Like it or not that is the reality of human behaviour. It is crucial to rational politics and rational governance that that is accommodated which can only be done within an inegalitarian society that does not limit personal financial ambition. That is realistic and politically right wing! Rational politics is necessarily right wing. I as a rationalist am proud to be right wing!
Geoffrey H L Berg