Inequality Can Be a Good Thing
This article is part two of a three-part series on inequality, especially in light of the new bestselling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty.
In part one, Allan Carlson asks conservatives to take Piketty’s recommendations seriously.
Inequality can be a good thing.
That is, in part, what Russell Kirk teaches us about equality in his magnum opus, The Conservative Mind.
Kirk endorses a “conservatism of enjoyment” that has “affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence,” and appreciates that human society cannot be rearranged according to some abstract principle like equality without destroying important components of a full life. This necessarily means there will be “inequality,” for people choose different ways of expressing their values or principles, and society should allow them to do so. Kirk opposes this enjoyment in what may be termed atrue diversity against the “narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems.” Such radicalism sees humanity through a particular prism and forces all society through it.
This skepticism toward abstract notions such as equality continues a long line of conservative criticism of equality, which is too often used to destroy real living human communities in favor of government action. From Rousseau to Marx and now to Thomas Piketty (the French economist who penned the new unlikely bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century), liberalism is wrong on equality.
But equality also has a central place in “classical” liberal thought—what many today would identify as libertarianism, or economic conservatism. In the classical liberal telling—from John Locke to his modern libertarian descendants—inequality is also an evil. Therefore, all inherited or nonmarket bonds of society must be weakened or eliminated so we can all be “equal” in a free and unfettered market environment and reap the benefits of capitalist “creative destruction.”
Modernity is basically in agreement, then, that inequality is a bad thing, but with two different solutions to the problem: one, the utopian vision best described by Marx, and the other a defense of free markets most identified with Locke and his ilk.
The trouble is, universal equality—by government edict or economic opportunity—has not been achieved. And in the pursuit of equality, we have sacrificed freedom. As Tocqueville saw, we have moved from an open society where each may seek and find his place to an oligarchic society enforcing a sham equality on the populace.
Inequality can be a good thing.
That is, in part, what Russell Kirk teaches us about equality in his magnum opus, The Conservative Mind.
Kirk endorses a “conservatism of enjoyment” that has “affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence,” and appreciates that human society cannot be rearranged according to some abstract principle like equality without destroying important components of a full life. This necessarily means there will be “inequality,” for people choose different ways of expressing their values or principles, and society should allow them to do so. Kirk opposes this enjoyment in what may be termed atrue diversity against the “narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems.” Such radicalism sees humanity through a particular prism and forces all society through it.
This skepticism toward abstract notions such as equality continues a long line of conservative criticism of equality, which is too often used to destroy real living human communities in favor of government action. From Rousseau to Marx and now to Thomas Piketty (the French economist who penned the new unlikely bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century), liberalism is wrong on equality.
But equality also has a central place in “classical” liberal thought—what many today would identify as libertarianism, or economic conservatism. In the classical liberal telling—from John Locke to his modern libertarian descendants—inequality is also an evil. Therefore, all inherited or nonmarket bonds of society must be weakened or eliminated so we can all be “equal” in a free and unfettered market environment and reap the benefits of capitalist “creative destruction.”
Modernity is basically in agreement, then, that inequality is a bad thing, but with two different solutions to the problem: one, the utopian vision best described by Marx, and the other a defense of free markets most identified with Locke and his ilk.
The trouble is, universal equality—by government edict or economic opportunity—has not been achieved. And in the pursuit of equality, we have sacrificed freedom. As Tocqueville saw, we have moved from an open society where each may seek and find his place to an oligarchic society enforcing a sham equality on the populace.
.........
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario