It is manifestly apparent that we live in a world of gross inequality. There are wide disparities in employment, media representation, wealth, and power between sectors of society, racial groups, subcultures, genders, and many other methods of aggregate measurement. Individuals within the same communities sharing the same superficial traits can also vary widely. Access to the halls of power can skew these differences even further. Something is clearly wrong.
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*Equality* has been the rallying cry of revolutionaries for over 200 years now. We have seen the end of chattel slavery, the erosion or abolition of monarchy, a massive shift in perceptions surrounding gender roles, and the growth of the market economy as it has supplanted the old system of colonial mercantilism.
However, these changes have resulted in new concerns of inequality. The idea of representative government was supposed to replace aristocracy with altruistic fraternity. That has obviously not been the result. Now, there is a stark division in society.
Some want a representative government that administers every aspect of our lives to achieve some equality of outcome. We need a level playing field with a guaranteed basic income, universal healthcare, housing for all, and free education, they say. All we need to do is obey their elite, pay what they demand, and submit to their wise leadership. Then all will be equal under the benevolent gaze of our wise overlords. And this is not in any way a new veneer on the age-old authoritarianism of the past. No, elections guarantee representation, and the people who achieve power will be driven only by virtue, not greed.
Others say we need a mostly-free market, but the foolish whims of the general populace need to be restrained by wise governance. We also need someone who has the power to step in and right wrongs, ensure the provision of *law and order,* restrain our vices, and actively promote virtue. These wise leaders will ensure our security by fighting any threats abroad or at home with righteous fervor. The result will be an equal opportunity to thrive. And this is not in any way a new veneer on the age-old authoritarianism of the past. No, elections guarantee representation, and the people who achieve power will be driven only by virtue, not greed.
In case it isn't obvious, I don't have much faith in the political solutions offered by the left and right of today's politics.
Freedom, though, presents a spectre of fear. The idea that *no one is in control* frightens those raised to believe in the stabilizing effects of central power, no matter how illusory the authority or empty the virtue it really presents. The real inequality of individuals is also brought into stark relief.
We are all unique, and in that sense, entirely unequal to one another. We have differing value scales, abilities, and ambitions. Our virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, education levels, willingness to apply ourselves to various tasks, and other factors guarantee that we will have different starting points and differing outcomes regardless of the circumstances.
On the other hand, none of us have any inherent authority to rule our neighbors. Life, liberty, and property define our spheres of authority, and the boundaries where we would trespass against one another. There are, of course, numerous disputes over how to define these boundaries, but the idea that a political class can resolve these disputes without suffering the same failings as the rest, and without any risk of moral hazard, is deeply naive.
In the absence of such a political class, there would likely be a vastly unequal distribution of wealth and economic power.
>The Pareto principle [...] states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle))
If you have ever participated in any group activity, you have probably seen this effect. Most of the points in a game of basketball are earned by a minority of the players. Only a few science fair entries exhibit serious effort by the students. A small portion of retail inventory dominates the majority of sales.
In a free society, there will be some whose outcomes appear vastly unequal, too. And a cursory examination of statistical data will lead to the conclusion that even if we correct for political intervention, the rich will get richer while the poor stagnate.
Of course, the usual response is a demand for political intervention to redistribute that wealth to those who are disadvantaged. But is this really what is going on?
Over time, in a free economy with less erosion of wealth through inflation, taxation, and regulation stifling opportunity, people will have a real opportunity to improve their economic status over time. People tend to be poor in their youth, accumulate wealth over the course of their careers, and then spend that saved wealth in old age.
The corporate interests rightly denounced by the left do not so much exploit this market phenomenon as use political power to distort it, though. The corporate cartels of today rely on regulatory capture, licensing restrictions, and other political protections to ensure their market position. This has been sold to a gullible public for over a century as benevolent protection of the consumer and small business from the very rapacious interests who consistently win in the end.
It is also this political system that has imposed segregation, prohibition, and ever other unjust legal inequality suffered by minorities, even though welfare programs are perpetually offered as a solution to the systemic problems of political intervention.
Maybe it is time to embrace the inequality of freedom with all its fluctuation and risk instead of relying on the massive power disparity imposed by any political system with its record of entrenched inequality. The Pareto Principle is not a threat to equality, just a natural outcome of it. Wealth is not the same as political power. Fighting it in the name of equality only guarantees injustice while creating a massively unequal power disparity, and simply provides the means for those driven by vice to entrench themselves while legitimizing their ill-gotten gains.
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