Chapter Ǵǹ: Can a Liberal Be an Egalitarian? ȃȆȂaspects of exceptionally favorable opportunity. Any really close approach
to equality of opportunity is, however, impossible. Liberals should shun
a slogan—“equality of opportunity”—whose implementation is impos-
sible, especially since even an attempt to implement it approximately
would entail totalitarianism. Furthermore, it is hard to see equality of
opportunity as a desideratum distinct from equality of income or sta-
tus, since unequal attainments in income or status must be due either
to unequal luck or to unequal endowments of the abilities and inclina-
tions conducive to achieving income or status. From an egalitarian stand-
point, inequality of results would show that unequal luck had not been
properly compensated for or that opportunities had not been properly
equalized.
From the liberal standpoint, the whole discussion would be simplified
by calling foradequacyrather than equality of opportunity. Removal of
actual poverty and of caste and race restrictions that arbitrarily hamper
people in the pursuit of their own goals is quite different from chopping
down advantages.
Why, incidentally, might anyone want to chop down advantages rather
than merely remove disadvantages? I wonder whether one of the objectives
of egalitarians who consider themselves liberals might not be to make the
outcome of the market process a more nearly plausible indicator of per-
sonal worth. Ļeir likening of life to a “game” or “race” and their talk of
imposing “handicaps” to make the game “interesting” certainly suggests so
(recall Frank Knight, quoted above). Everyone is to have the same purpose
in life, overriding the diverse purposes that individuals might otherwise
have; and this common purpose is to succeed in the game. Everyone is to
engage in it, if necessary be drafted into it. Ļe score will be kept, espe-
cially in money and status. No one will have an excuse for not taking this
rivalry seriously, for proper handicaps will have been imposed. By persuad-
ing themselves that the “game” has been made “fair,” the self-styled liberal
egalitarians will have more of a supposed basis than ever for indulging a
propensity to pass judgment on their fellows, smugly dispensing praise
and scorn.
Ļis view of society as an organized activity, with the government as
a busybody game-master or social director imposing handicaps and oth-
erwise trying to drum up “interesting” rivalry, strikes me as profoundly
anti-liberal. It is putting things backwards to regard the game—or the
market of the textbooks—as a supreme value in its own right, with the
diverse values of individuals taking second place.