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February 26, 2004

Freedom and Equality

We’ve been talking about fairness quite a bit over the past few weeks, and one thing has become quite clear (although we all really knew it going in): fairness is a very relative value. To return to the highly contentious issue of health care for a moment, one of my commenters considers it fair to provide health care for all, while another believes that fairness simply requires us to ensure that health care is available for those who are willing to pay for it. Clearly both approaches cannot be considered fair at the same time, yet just as clearly different people will consider different solutions fair or unfair. I believe that a great deal of this dispute revolves around where each person stands on the continuum of freedom vs. equality.

Most of you, I hope, are familiar with Kurt Vonnegut’s infamous short story Harrison Bergeron. The story discusses the America of the future, where everyone is actually equal. The government has managed this by placing handicaps on anyone who is smarter, stronger, better looking, and so forth, until all Americans are brought down to the level of the lowest American. Very few of us would actually endorse such a regime, both because it would reduce us to a nation of bumbling idiots and because it would involve such a massive intrusion on people’s freedoms.

Yet we all take a position somewhere on that line. At one end lies the world of “Harrison Bergeron,” where nobody is free but everyone is equal. At the other end lies anarchy, where everyone is perfectly free, but nobody is equal. While there are some arch-libertarians who argue that anarchy is the way to go, and there may be a few who will argue that “Harrison Bergeron” represents an ideal world, I suspect the majority of us fall somewhere in between. Anarchy, after all, also leads to the rule of the strong, and would hardly be conducive to a society in which we possessed the freedoms we do today; while anarchy would lead to theoretical complete freedom for all, in practice it is as likely to lead to reduced freedoms for a large number of people.

So we choose a line somewhere in the middle. And our opinions on fairness have a great effect on where we want the line. Publicola pointed out to Gary Farber in my comments that Gary’s desire for universal health care meant he was willing to send government troops into people’s homes and kill them if they aren’t willing to support the program through their tax dollars. Gary took offense to this, but it is literally true. All governments are based on force, in the end. However, unless Publicola is advocating pure anarchy, he too is willing to send government troops into people’s homes to kill them if they won’t support certain programs. The difference only lies in how many things you’re willing to have the government kill for. For myself, I believe that government is a necessary evil in order to preserve people’s rights and to allow the system of capitalism to work to its full potential.

That places me fairly near the far end of the continuum. When a government program is proposed, my instinct is to oppose it. My own preference is for a minimalist government that provides for the common defense and maintains a solid court system and that’s about it. I’m willing to see some impositions placed on my freedom in order to see those programs instituted, but I will fight attempts to further restrict freedom in order to tack on additional programs. For me, freedom is a much more important value than equality. I am reminded of the magnificent words of Kilrain in Michael Sharra’s novel The Killer Angels, “No two things on earth are equal or have equal chance, not a leaf nor a tree.” There’s little doubt of the truth of that statement in my eyes, nor can I imagine many people with any experience with their fellow man disagreeing with it. We all have our own unique strengths and weaknesses, and we all have good and bad luck. All I ask of government is the freedom to have the chance to better myself. If I and my fellow men are free, than I think the rest can take care of itself.

That means I’m accepting an awful lot of inequality, by definition. I can already hear my liberal friends asking how free a man is if he doesn’t have a roof over his head or reliable health care or a job, or whatever else is deemed essential to his survival. Certainly I agree that he is not equal in circumstance to someone who does possess such things, that’s a fact. But he has the freedom to try and acquire those items. It that easy to do? Certainly not, but it’s by no means impossible. The vast majority of Americans use this freedom to move up and down the economic scale throughout their lives. As Thomas Sowell noted the other day, only a small fraction of Americans remain in the lowest twenty percent of earners permanently; the rest of us move up from that bracket and slip down from the top bracket throughout our lives, as we make wise or unwise decisions about our lives. There will be inequities; but if we’re free, we will have the opportunity to overcome them, if we’re willing to work.

Now to my liberal friends, let me borrow from the speeches of your standard bearer: bring it on. ;)