Summary article ‘The case against equality of
opportunity’ – Matthews
Equality of opportunity assumes that life is a zero-sum competition for
wealth and status; it assumes there will always be an underclass. We
shouldn’t want a better underclass, we should want no underclass; a
decent society should try to achieve a reasonable and rising standard of
living for all.
Some of the most important inequalities of opportunity can’t be addressed
by governments in any reasonable way. Equality of opportunity promises
not just sufficient opportunities to all families, but equivalent ones.
Equality of opportunity would make every parenting choice a matter of
public policy, to be regulated accordingly.
We could attempt to control children’s opportunity sets so that everyone
grows up with opportunities that provide an equal shot at economic or
education success. However, this would deny us the benefits of our
current pluralist approach to parenting.
Equality of opportunity is not an ethical way to decide who deserves what.
While equality of outcomes promises gains for every poor person, equality
of opportunity leaves some people out. Equality of opportunity is usually
defined in opposition to equality of outcomes.
Genes play a nontrivial role. That implies that even in a world of pure
equality of opportunity, where environmental inequalities were eliminated,
there would be inequality. There would be an overclass and an underclass,
people who do better or worse due to no fault of their own.
An opportunity is only an opportunity if it can be squandered – even if that
squandering is a consequence of poverty, deprivation and lead poisoning.
The obsession with effort pervades the discourse on equality of
opportunity. The motivation to work hard and make a serious effort isn’t
simply a personal choice; it’s the result of millions of environmental and
genetic factors.
Mobility is estimated by calculating a statistic economists and
sociologists call ‘intergenerational elasticity of income’. That trakcs the
strength of the relationship between parents’ earnings and that of their
children. If the intergenerational elasticity of income is zero, then every
child has an equal chance of ending up on the top of the income
distribution as on the bottom, regardless of where they came from. The
goal isn’t to make life harder for people on top; it should be making it
easier for people on the bottom to rise.
Rather than seeking an unobtainable world with perfect equality of
opportunity, we should seek out ‘bottlenecks’ that close off opportunities
to the poor.
opportunity’ – Matthews
Equality of opportunity assumes that life is a zero-sum competition for
wealth and status; it assumes there will always be an underclass. We
shouldn’t want a better underclass, we should want no underclass; a
decent society should try to achieve a reasonable and rising standard of
living for all.
Some of the most important inequalities of opportunity can’t be addressed
by governments in any reasonable way. Equality of opportunity promises
not just sufficient opportunities to all families, but equivalent ones.
Equality of opportunity would make every parenting choice a matter of
public policy, to be regulated accordingly.
We could attempt to control children’s opportunity sets so that everyone
grows up with opportunities that provide an equal shot at economic or
education success. However, this would deny us the benefits of our
current pluralist approach to parenting.
Equality of opportunity is not an ethical way to decide who deserves what.
While equality of outcomes promises gains for every poor person, equality
of opportunity leaves some people out. Equality of opportunity is usually
defined in opposition to equality of outcomes.
Genes play a nontrivial role. That implies that even in a world of pure
equality of opportunity, where environmental inequalities were eliminated,
there would be inequality. There would be an overclass and an underclass,
people who do better or worse due to no fault of their own.
An opportunity is only an opportunity if it can be squandered – even if that
squandering is a consequence of poverty, deprivation and lead poisoning.
The obsession with effort pervades the discourse on equality of
opportunity. The motivation to work hard and make a serious effort isn’t
simply a personal choice; it’s the result of millions of environmental and
genetic factors.
Mobility is estimated by calculating a statistic economists and
sociologists call ‘intergenerational elasticity of income’. That trakcs the
strength of the relationship between parents’ earnings and that of their
children. If the intergenerational elasticity of income is zero, then every
child has an equal chance of ending up on the top of the income
distribution as on the bottom, regardless of where they came from. The
goal isn’t to make life harder for people on top; it should be making it
easier for people on the bottom to rise.
Rather than seeking an unobtainable world with perfect equality of
opportunity, we should seek out ‘bottlenecks’ that close off opportunities
to the poor.
