ȃȅȃ Partʺʺ: Politics and PhilosophyAccording to Simons,
Sound meliorative measures must yield not mere leveling of incomes but
leveling accretions of capacity, capital, and possessed power.
Equality of opportunity is an ideal that free societies should constantly
pursue, even at much cost in terms of other ends. (ȀȈȃȇ, p.ȅ)According to Allan T. Peacock,
Liberal support for such measures as progressive taxation does not rest
on the utilitarian belief that an extra pound is more “valuable” or will
“afford a greater utility” to a poor man than to a rich man. It rests on a
positive dislike of gross inequality. (Quoted in HayekȀȈȅǿ, p.ȄȀȇ)Frank H. Knight has repeatedly likened social life to a “game” or “con-
test,” has talked about the “distribution of prizes,” has mused on what ar-
rangements tend to make the contest “interesting to participants and spec-
tators,” and has considered the imposition of “handicaps.”ȁHis thought is
so rich and complex that a reader cannot be sure whether Knight really
favors some degree of leveling down for the sake of equality as an end
in its own right. Qualifications can also be found in Simons’s writings.
But whatever the correct interpretations may be, Knight and Simons have
furnished intellectual stimulation for some of their more forthrightly egal-
itarian Chicago School disciples. Ideas of the kind under consideration
abound, of course, in the works of writers who do not even claim to be
traditional liberals.
I wonder whether liberals who speak of equality as an end in its own
right have really examined their values thoroughly.Whyis equality an end?
Perhaps some people honestly have no idea of how to answer this question
because they consider equality as an ultimate desideratum that they cannot
describe as a means of serving any more basic values. But this position
must be rare. Most egalitarians presumably consider equality a means to
more basic values with which the connection is obvious.
What might these still more basic values be?ȂOne might be the avoid-
ance of concentrated power. But great wealth is not great power. Being
ȁFor example, in KnightȀȈȂȅ, pp.ȅǿ–ȅȅ,ȁȈȁ–ȁȈȂ,Ȃǿȁ–Ȃǿȃ.
ȂĻe ones to be considered here still are not absolutely basic. An absolute value
would presumably be something comprehensive and vague such as “human happiness”
or “human self-fulfillment.” Not only economics but also political science, sociology, psy-
chology, philosophy, and other disciplines presumably have much to contribute to inves-
tigation of whichintermediateends, or the policies and social and political and economic