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09 March 2001

False Dichotomy: Liberty versus Equality

Yesterday was a bad day for National Review Online. I've already dealt with their celebration of Oliver Wendell Holmes as a judicial restrainer, which couldn't be further from the truth. Now I want to take up another misconception promulgated on NRO yesterday, the false circumstance of "liberty versus equality." This is another of those false dichotomies one often sees in American government texts and other readers that oversimplify American political thought. As an example, here's a sentence from a prominent American government text: "Popular opinion has it that freedom and equality go hand in hand. In reality, these two values usually clash when governments enact policies to promote social equality." And here's a passage from Goldberg's NRO article yesterday that accepts the same dichotomy:

Admittedly, conservatism is not always and everywhere on the same side of every issue, like Mr. Browne's version of libertarianism. He puts the highest emphasis on individual liberty (leftists place their highest emphasis on equality � another nice thing when unforced and taken in moderation).

The problem with Goldberg -- and NRO ought to know better -- is that he accepts this false dichotomy hook, line, and sinker. As concepts of political philosophy, liberty and equality do indeed "go hand in hand" as the textbook suggests before engaging in dishonesty. The founders could not have made this more clear than in the Declaration of Independence, nor could Lincoln's interpretation have made it more clear. In our own time, Harry Jaffa has gone far to defend the founders' view of the two intertwined concepts, most notably in his essay "Equality as a Conservative Principle" but really throughout his voluminous writings.

Note how the authors of the American government text change "equality" from a concept in political philosophy to an entirely different creature: "social equality." Whatever the hell that may be, it is certainly different from the Founders' (and Lincoln's, and Jaffa's) conception of equality (featured most prominently in the Declaration, but found throughout American political writing during the founding era). This "social equality" version of equality certainly is opposed to liberty, at least in the economic sphere, since its pursuit by government requires the use of force to compel transfers of wealth from some to others. Liberals and sloppy students of the American founding (Goldberg must be included in this latter group) are doing a disservice to the study of American political thought when they talk about liberty versus equality when they really mean liberty versus this bizarre notion of "social equality" (however defined). For those on the Left, this confusion is purposeful, since it allows them to justify their socialist economic policies on the basis of a grand founding principle; for libertarian-conservative types like Goldberg to let them get away with it is frustrating.

When I was an undergrad, I recall being similarly frustrated with the old liberty versus order dichotomy (also featured prominently in American government textbooks) as a method of determining whether one was a conservative or a liberal. Those one dimensional assessments are just as flawed, because they lump together two different components of liberty -- personal (or social) and economic, creating an underspecified (and therefore inaccurate) model. A much better model of political liberty is the one that has been promoted by the Libertarian Party for years now (represented by the graphic below), which takes into account the two-dimensional nature of liberty. I've yet to see it featured in an American government text -- though I haven't looked at any new ones over the past couple of years -- which says something about the discipline of political science.

[Posted @ 09:49 PM CST]

COMMENTS

I first got a clear idea of the concept of "social equality" through this summary of Thomas Sowell's book "The Quest for Cosmic Justice". Seeing Goldberg use the word "equality" that way was surprising. I'm hoping it was just a mistake in a hastily-written column (those fiery libbies were keeping him busy this week, after all ;) that he'll address later.

Have you read "Harrison Bergeron"? There are full texts on the web, since it's not a very long story. It's an fun dystopic view of what might happen if people keep pursuing this idea of "social equality".
[Posted by Evelynne on 10 March 2001, 12:57 PM CST]


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