By ALBERTO MARTINEZ PIEDRA
(Editor’s Note: Alberto Piedra holds doctorates in economics, political economy, and law.)
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Recently there appeared an article in The Washington Post in which it was stated that early education is seen as key to narrowing achievement gaps. According to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), this should be the model going forward all over this country. I do not doubt the mayor’s good intentions in his attempts to help the less privileged sectors of society at an early age; a policy that may permit them to acquire the necessary skills that will help them reach higher levels of education at a later stage in their lives. The educational gap between the “haves” and “have nots” will be narrowed and, as a consequence the results will be more equalized.
In theory this policy seems plausible but the reality of life teaches us that very often this is not the case. Equality of opportunity at an early stage in life, especially in education, is laudable and should be encouraged but this does not necessarily guarantee the desired equality of results.
There is an important factor that tends to be overlooked. The Creator has not dotted all of His creatures with an equal level of intelligence or endowments. In a class of ten, for example, all the students are given the same opportunity to reach the desired goal but not all of them will succeed, independently of their race, color, or other personal attributes. To have a greater diversity, racial or otherwise, within the class will not solve this innate problem.
Education per se will not modify the students’ God-given intellectual abilities. The problem lies in trying to equalize rewards in spite of the intellectual differences that exist between them. This leads us to what some scholars have called the “diversity cult.” The danger lies that such a “cult” is also very often applied not only in the business world and other vocational goals (job applications, etc.), but also in the area of higher education. Under the so-called quota system and under the pretext of diversity, there is always the possibility, if not the probability, that a less qualified person may occupy a position.
Discriminatory policies — if they can be called that way — can occur in many different economic, social, and educational areas but, in my opinion, the greatest danger lies in the educational system. Let us hope that some of the more capable minds of our youth are not sacrificed in the altar of the goddess diversity.
It is generally accepted that the less privileged sectors of society deserve some compensatory privileges for the lack of opportunities they experienced in the past and, in many cases, still continue to face in our contemporary society. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with such a policy as long as its ultimate goal is not to bring about the utopian ideal of a totally equalitarian society, a goal that, given the nature of man, can never be reached. It is one thing to give everyone the opportunity to succeed in life in accordance with their God-given qualifications, but it is quite another to turn the passion for equality into a sort of delirium.
Historical evidence and the facts of everyday life have demonstrated the fallacy of such an equalitarian objective. As the brilliant French political analyst Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his masterpiece Democracy in America: “The first and liveliest of the passions inspired by equality is, I need not say, love of equality itself.” The illustrious Frenchman went as far as saying that equality is a slogan based on envy. Thus, would it be fair to say that democratic nations show a more ardent and enduring love of equality than of liberty? Tocqueville also gave the following warning concerning extreme equality: “The ills produced by extreme equality only become apparent little by little; they gradually insinuate themselves into the body social; they are only occasionally noticed, and when they do become most excessive, habit has already made them pass unfelt.”
Once that stage has been reached, it is no use pointing out the reality that freedom is rapidly disappearing and equality has triumphed over liberty. The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevski wrote in his well-known novel The Possessed that egalitarian madness was the cause rather than the result of tyranny. Bertrand de Jouvenel in his book On Power has no hesitation in relating the rise of democracy or what he calls the “equalization of conditions” to his theme of the expansion of centralized Power. Pierre Manent, director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, claims in his excellent book An Intellectual History of Liberalism:
“The liberal plan, because it wants to found itself on ‘natural’ equality, essentially opens up a history: the history of man’s efforts and progress toward artificially establishing through sovereignty the ‘natural’ equality from which he will be able to construct the legitimate political order in a fully rational or conscious way.”
There seems to be a consensus among many high-caliber intellectuals that an excess of equality can lead to a totalitarian state with the eventual loss of freedom. According to Professor Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Aristotle had already alluded to this outcome in his masterpiece Politics.
If this is the case, how can it be explained that many defenders of “democracy” support policies that run counter to their claims of political and economic freedoms?
Richard Herrnstein of Harvard University earlier wrote an article in Atlantic Monthly claiming that “even if we are able to equalize the home and school environment of all children, natural academic ability will enable some children to outperform others.” Charles Murray, scholar and political libertarian, in his article “The Inequality Taboo,” claims in no uncertain terms that “Affirmative Action…assumes there are no innate differences between any of the groups it seeks to help and everyone else. The assumption of no innate differences among groups suffuses American social policy. That assumption is also wrong.”
Many years earlier the Italian philosopher Wilfredo Pareto had already warned that equality was related to the particular interests of individuals or groups who, with the pretext of eliminating certain social inequalities, were creating new inequalities, but this time in their favor.
Thus, a new reality is being formed whereby freedom is gradually being eroded under the pretext of a false and utopian diversity, not to mention a mythological equality of conditions. The utopian economic objective that the probable value of total satisfactions can be maximized by dividing income evenly, as Professor Lerner claims in his book The Economics of Control, is also an unrealizable myth.
The brilliant British economist Professor Lionel Robbins in his excellent work, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, dismisses this utopian dream, claiming that such a goal rests upon the highly artificial assumptions that man’s initial condition is one of equality. Any deviation from it is simply due to chance. It seems, therefore, quite clear that excesses in the distribution of income and the loss of investment capital can only lead to more power for the state which threatens the very foundations of liberty.
It is a fact of life that in man there is accidental inequality of strength, intelligence, skills etc. However, in all that goes with being a man there is equality — each man is an immortal spirit, each is created in God’s image. Thus, as long as we see man as a human person created in the image of God, we have to conclude that the equality of men is fundamental but, at the same time, the reality of accidental differences cannot be denied.
Contemporary man must not be indifferent to the suffering and less endowed individuals — or groups — in society. Once this fact is established we have not only the right but the duty to strive for the remedy. This reality poses a challenge to us to cooperate in the development of whatever powers are in any human being. To concentrate exclusively on our own talents, at the exclusion of the needs of others, is a sin for which God will judge us. No man can be denied the possibility of full development.
Nevertheless, let us not forget that “. . . however much healing, there will remain inequalities in social function and inequalities in reward. In this sense there can be no such thing as equality, and the effort to secure equality is in its essence folly and in its results can do great harm in its results.”
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