The Quixotic Dream of Egalitarian Opportunity

In my last post, I talked about the need for communities to embrace a culture of opportunity for all. However, I don’t want that to be misconstrued as support for equality of opportunity, because they are two fundamentally different ideas.

Not convinced? Let’s work through it.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s definition of equality of opportunity is, unsurprisingly, extremely dry and painfully dense. After sifting through the metaphorical weeds, I boiled it down to “the assignment of individuals to places in the social hierarchy is determined by some form of competitive process, and all members of society are eligible to compete on equal terms.”

Equality of opportunity has become synonymous to many with meritocracy, where “the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement.” This tacitly assumes that success is determined by merit and work ethic, by capitalizing on the opportunities in which one is afforded. However, we know that our system doesn’t have the same goal posts for all people, and not everyone has to work the same amount to reach their respective socially-determined threshold for “success.”

As Dylan Matthews wrote in his incredible “The Case Against Equality of Opportunity” for Vox, “[equality of opportunity] is a way for us to justify the abandonment of people who – we insist – were given opportunities and squandered them.” It follows along with the Reagan-era narrative that people are poor because they’re not working hard enough or failed to take advantage of opportunities that we coarsely assume they had to begin with.

This narrative around effort as the determinant for success, as is implicated under equality of opportunity, makes those of us who have experienced tremendous opportunities [and few barriers to seeing and taking those opportunities, I’ll add] feel justified in our position within the social hierarchy.

“[Effort] offers an excuse for elites to look out for disadvantaged people with whom they empathize, and not those with whom they feel no kinship…it wants to reserve membership [in the underclass] for those who truly deserve it.”

That doesn’t sound like the kind of “opportunity for all” that I was talking about in my last post. I am of the same mind as Dylan Matthews in that “a decent society shouldn’t try to build a better aristocracy. It should try to achieve a reasonable and rising standard of living for all.”

Everyone deserves to be treated like an equal human being, in that they should be able to live a fulfilling life to their utmost potential and abilities. Period.

It is important, however, to acknowledge that inequality cannot be quixotically eradicated from society as if it were polio or smallpox; it is built into the heart of how we’ve decided to structure our political, economic, social, and cultural institutions.

And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s what “opportunity for all” recognizes and “equality of opportunity” does not.

“Common sense tells us that inherited inequality is in part the result of economic injustice and in part the result of disparities of intelligence, skill, and application.”

It’s important when framing social justice and social sustainability that this inherent inequality is normal and should not be seen as a bad thing. People are different, and that’s good. Diversity of people, backgrounds, ideas, histories, and perspectives can only further enrich a community, only if that diversity is recognized, accepted, and cultivated.

We can control the economic injustice side of the equation, though. So, what local policymakers in communities can do, rather than focus on eliminating the inequality gap in opportunity completely, is focus on narrowing that gap. What does that look like, though?

On one hand, “equality of opportunity promises not just sufficient opportunities to all families, but equivalent ones.” This is the quixotic and unintendedly counter-productive underpinning of egalitarian opportunity: in order to ensure that everyone has equal opportunities in reality, the government would need to take complete totalitarian control over the state and society in order to control the spread of information and opportunities in an even and uniform manner. This clearly isn’t something that would be possible, first of all, or even desirable for most people.

On the other hand, “we need a new political economy that will distribute resources more evenly and give working people greater assets and confidence, thereby ensuring a better start for their children.” Although this may sound difficult to achieve on a local level from community to community, strong leadership and a clear vision for the benefit of everyone can have an enormous impact.

“The more we seek to link social and economic prestige with virtue [‘a combination of talent, fitness for a specific social role, and a moral exercise of that role for the benefit of wider society’], then the more we can hope for good financial and political leaders possessed of compassion and integrity.”

Realistic, empathetic, and inclusive. Now that sounds more like it to me.