Orrin -- After Rawls's death you criticized Richard Epstein and other conservatives for praising Rawls ("I find it odd that conservatives would be so laudatory of a man who dedicated his life to an attack on freedom"
), yet now you repeat Epstein's point
that Rawls's logic points toward freedom as the best system of government because freedom leads to the greatest standard of living for the worst off.



Why not laud Rawls, then, for finding yet another argument for freedom, and make the point that Justice, Prosperity, and Freedom are not competing values but different motives for the same political system?

That third paragraph needs breaking up.

Justice is incompatible with freedom. He chose justice.

Ali:



Where?

"...with liberty and justice for all." ?

Precisely, Barry.

From



"It seems that when one dons Mr. Rawls's "veil of ignorance"



onwards.

Thanks, Ali.



Barry & pj: I think that's the point: the desire for equality and security is legitimate, but it's anti-American.

I would say: the willingness to sacrifice freedom to obtain an illusory equality and security is both illegitimate (because unjust) and
unAmerican; the only way to obtain genuine equality -- an equality counted not just in monetary terms, but in human dignity -- and economic security is through freedom, which is
justice. BTW, as Nozick showed, equality (of wealth) is impossible without inequality (of power); so one must explain what one means by "equality."



Ali - that's the key sentence, which is right on, and which inspired my first comment because that sentence was Epstein's point too - but Orrin needs to follow his own logic a little farther. He weakens the conservative case by claiming the pursuit of equality -- one of the great American ideals and principles of the Declaration of Independence -- as "antiAmerican."

pj:



I believe that you are profoundly wrong. If the "pursuit" of equality is our purpose, then Rawls and Marx and company are correct and we should redistribute wealth so as to achieve it.



What the Declaration speaks of is men being created equal, that is they start from a point of moral equality, not that they finish with an equal amount of loot.



see here for more:



http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1179/

pj:



Moreover, it is of course the case that those of us who have believe that we should be allowed to keep. But, in the abstract, why shouldn't a redistributed equality be legitimate as against an unequal liberty? There is some power to the question: what use is freedom to a starving man?



Now, I believe that the American system proceeds from the premise that we've chosen freedom--with all of the consequences it entails--over equality. And I believe, as you, that freedom delivers greater equality in practice. However, that does not in itself delegitimize the quest for equality that other, uniformly less successful, societies have undertaken.



To assert that it is illegitimate is to delegitimize our opponents as they so often seek to delegitimize us. That seems unproductive and unfair. I think they're wrong and will fight them, but I try to understand how they've been led astray.

Note too that we are "created" equal but equality is not an ennumerated "right". Instead, you have the right, in Jefferson's unfortunate phrase (Property was the classic third leg of the triad), to pursue "happiness".

Well, I'll treat each of your replies in order:



1) The Declaration not only says people start life from a point of "moral equality", but that they maintain moral equality as long as they live, which is why they can justly revolt against a government that imposes moral inequality. You need to develop this concept of "moral equality."



2) The redistributionist philosophy cannot maintain equality except by a permanent, all-powerful regime that can take possessions and wealth from those who have too much and give it to those who have too little. Thus it demands a permanent inequality in the power to use force: some people have virtually unlimited power, others have no power to redistribute and must submit. (As in Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others.) Thus "equal wealth" implies extremely unequal power -- i.e. extreme "moral inequality" to borrow your phrase.

And since it is purely subjective how to value many goods on a measure of wealth -- i.e. how valuable, in monetary terms, is the power to redistribute wealth? -- there can never be a social consensus on when equality of wealth has been achieved. It is an illusory goal.



Security against dire poverty is a less stringent demand and I believe most American voters are seeking a political compromise that combines freedom with some protections of economic security.



Illegitimate is a term I don't use but I adopted it after you did as a synonym for "unjust."



3) Yes. Of course it's utterly incoherent to speak of some level of wealth as a 'natural right,' such rights can only arise out of voluntary commitments from others or they require slavery and involuntary servitude.

pj:



(1) This is simply untrue: people do not develop equally. The hard worker excels the slacker. The man who educates himself excels the dullard. The criminal goes to prison. The coward never attempts the difficult. Thus do we end up being extremely unequal beings. Having been born with all the world before us, some choose wisely and some poorly and their eventual stations in life therefore differ.



The question then is what do we do about that. The elevation of Freedom as a value suggests we let folks live with the choices they make. Making Equality our goal suggests that we make continual adjustments along the way so that the drug-addled bum and Bill Gates are always financial peers.



(2) Power would not be distributed unevenly, it would all be vested in the government. It would then take from those with much and give to those with little. You worry about the exercise of freedom, but we've already determined in suuch a system that freedom is not something we value much. Equality is the goal and would not seem all that hard to achieve.



(3) But that's the point. What's wrong with slavery and involuntary servitude so long as all end up equal?

Seems to me that "equality" is being confused with "justice."



This becomes a semantic game, then. That not all people are "equal" would seems to make sense. We all have different abilities, qualities, etc.



Yet "...that all men are created equal" is enshrined in American consciousness (at least in theory). "Women" too, we (or at least most of us) should add. But this kind of equality means something else entirely; and it might mean something else today than it meant 225 odd years ago, when slavery was legal and there was no women suffrage (for that matter, non-landowners were also restricted in some areas).



So given these apparent contradictions regarding "equal," it seems the best we can do is try to ensure that people have equal opportunities; but that is also fraught with perceived "favoritism." So perhaps we're talking, realistically, about not impeding people from achieving the most that they can, or from living the life they wish to live (assuming they live within the "limitiation" of "live and let live"). To this end, "equality" might "merely" mean enabling education, library access, and pursuit of happiness to individuals, which they can then "exploit" to the best of their abililties and aspirations, as they wish--and then providing a legal system which can uphold the ability to "pursue that happiness" without unduly stepping on the toes of others. Of course, "merely" here is not merely merely.



As for "justice," can't this be more simply defined as the pursuit of a justice system which does not discriminate. Which has nothing to do with "equality" per se, but only with "equality before the law? (Rich, poor, white, black, gray, etc.) "Ah," I suppose some would say. "If things could be so simple...."

Barry:



When the Left--the American Left, at any rate--speaks of "Justice" they don't mean an equal treatment of all people under an impartial regime of Laws. They mean economic Justice, defined as economic equality. For the Left, the end of government is to achieve this equality.



For the Right, government's only end is to protect us from each other and from external enemies. In all other regards, a government should provide maximum Freedom, the means which allows us in the non-governmental realms of society to achieve our true end: a decent society. It is not for government to take my money and hand it to someone else. It is my faith, my family, my friends, my community, etc., that impose a moral obligation to help others.

Oh, I get it:



"...with liberty and justice for Rawls."

no liberty, just justice

oj:



1) You're confusing equality of wealth with equality of rights (=all persons have an equal base level of power to choose and act in certain ways). The Declaration declares certain of these rights "inalienable", i.e. they adhere to us throughout our lives. We are not merely born with them, we keep them always.



Equality of rights/power at this fundamental level is compatible with inequalities of wealth, and
it's compatible with freedom -- in fact, it's what we mean by freedom. People are free when their fundamental power/right to act in certain ways is not forcibly suppressed.



2) "Power would not be distributed unevenly, it would all be vested in the government." Haven't you just conceded that government officials will have all power and non-government-officials will have none? Isn't this uneven and unequal?



The fundamental equality of ordinary citizens with government officials is a key American principle, and if you relinquish it you have lost our greatest weapon against the enemies of freedom.



3) Of course you and I agree on the conclusion . . . it's just the reasoning leading up to it that we're debating.

pj:



Equality does mean different things to Left and Right, because they need it to mean different things. However, it seems fair to say that:



Equality is actually not one of the inalienable rights. It is instead the basis fromn which those rights proceed. We are created equal by God and are therefore granted certain rights.



If equality is a right--as is freedom, or life--then it must be one of the ends of government to secure it and Rawls is right. The government should be so constituted as to insure equality, just as it is currently structured to maximize liberty..



(2) The power of the bureaucrats argument is a canard. A state may have an execuitioner but we'd not contend that he has the "power" to take lives. He's a functionary. Power resides in the institutions of government. The equalizing power of said government would apply to the bureaucrats just as much as to Bill Gates, with neither allowed to earn, or keep, more than the other.



(3) What I'm trying to suggest is that reason does not yield freedom. Equality is just as compelling a goal of government. Instead, we have to choose between the two. America chooses the former, much of the world in the last century chose the latter and the West seems to be drifting towards it too. I believe, as many conservative philosophers have said http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/967
), that this is just as inevitable as it is undesirable and that those who value freedom must fight the egalitarian impulse in politics/government. First concede that equality is central to America's purpose and the battle is half lost.

2) It's no canard. Executioners may be functionaries but what are kings, dictators, congressmen, presidents, and supreme court justices? At any given moment we are governed by 535 congressmen, 1 president, and 9 supreme court justices who wield powers that entrusted to no other person. Perhaps there must be some inequality of power but the American genius was to minimize it compared to other nations (e.g. those with all-powerful monarchs).



Your understanding of the equal wealth claim is vulnerable to the criticism that many goods cannot be valued in terms of money (how much money does a spouse count for? joy in one's work?) and in any case different people value the same amount of money differently. A person who loves leisure, reading, walking, and watching the sunset will value a given amount of money differently than one who loves opera, fast cars, and luxury. What are we trying to equalize? If it is money, we are favoring those who need little money to live the life they want over those who need much. If it is subjectively-appraised income, then we have no way to measure it.



This problem is especially severe re rulers. How much psychic income do they derive from being all-powerful? How much psychic income is lost by being subject to their dictates?



I think it's quite possible to make out an argument that freedom creates the greatest possible equality, considered not in a material sense, but in terms of one's power to test and develop one's soul/character.



3) I think you sell reason short . . . especially if you allow reason access to the immense human experience showing that freedom works and alternatives don't.



Equality is "just as compelling" only to those who haven't thought the issues through. Equality of material wealth/income is an incoherent basis for government.

pj:



Is equality incoherent if you're starving? if you're stupid? if you're lazy? if you're crippled?



It's easy enough for us rich white Americans to dismiss the notion of raising up the poor to a higher level through government action and we're pretty certain it's unworkable, but why shouldn't someone who's living in poverty favor it?

"Raising up the poor to another level by government action is another question" -- that's certainly not unworkable in a prosperous society. Material equality is an incoherent goal, not some minimum standard of living. I think that will be the terrain of future politics; for now I think Republicans should seek a political compromise in which the poor are protected but by methods that don't increase dependency on government (e.g. a tax credit for charitable giving of $3000 per taxpayer would give just as money to private charities as government welfare bureaucracies now receive, while building loyalties among the poor to private, intermediate institutions and competing voluntary associations).



Equality is destructive to the poor; less extreme alternatives may be beneficial to them.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.