Are Liberty and Equality Incompatible?

In this second part of a multi-part essay, Hellishly Good Intentions, Patrick Ross looks at positive and negative definitions of human freedom alongside theories of equality.

The greatest threat to liberty is wrapped up in the answer to this question: are liberty and equality incompatible?

Jan Narveson doesn’t actually share the opinion that liberty and equality are incompatible, but in Are Liberty and Equality Compatible?, co-authored with James Plsubo, she outlines an argument that they are not.

The argument posits that positive liberty – liberty employed to a particular end – is preferable to negative liberty – simple freedom from impediment.

The catch is that those who make this case insist that positive liberty is born of the obligation that is attached to the materially fortunate. At the argument’s conclusion is becomes clear that positive liberty is not actually liberty because it benefits the materially disadvantaged by placing an impediment on those more fortunate.

Because it does so with the most seemingly-laudable intentions, the encroachments of positive liberty upon actualliberty often go unnoticed, or are tolerated.

“One’s own liberty does not have ‘value’, though it is essential to activity and so important as to take priority over all else,” Narveson writes (Narveson, 2010)[1]. “We value our liberty when it is lacking, especially: if someone is preventing me from doing something I very much want to do, I will be concerned to undo the impediment if I can. When I have it, on the other hand, I do not notice it.”

Some of the threats posed to liberty by those who follow Ronald Dworkin’s insistence that liberty must always be sacrificed when it competes with equality are so dangerous because they are difficult to notice.

This is at least partially because those who argue that liberty and inequality are incompatible often wrap their arguments in the language of liberty itself. They speak of “positive liberty”, wherein an individual not only is not prevented from doing what they wish to do, but wherein they must also have the necessary resources to do it.

Compare this to the idea of negative liberty: negative liberty concerns itself primarily with the lack of impediments on an individual’s action.

“Is there a duty to respect people’s liberty – to allow them to make their own decisions rather than compelling them not to?” Narveson asks (Narveson, 2010)[2]. “If there is, does it follow that there is a duty to providepeople with resources so that they can act – in short, to help– and this in the name of respecting liberty?”

Advocates for positive liberty insist that those with unequal means must be granted resources in order to ensure their fullest liberty. Quite frequently, that comes in the form of resources that must be appropriated – whether willingly or unwillingly – from those who already possess them.

By contrast, negative liberty requires no such appropriation of resources; freedom is granted, but it’s up to the individual to seek such resources for themselves. Moreover, those who possess such resources are left alone to decide how to use their resources, rather than having it expropriated for the ends of others.

Simply put, negative liberty is a negative right. Under this idea, one has the right to be free of restrictions on their freedom. Positive liberty is a positiveright – someone else is responsible to provide.

Not-so-simply put, rights are inter-personal duty generators. They are held “against” other people. Demands of normative action and treatment are placed upon others, who are required to recognize, acknowledge, and abide by those rights. From some perspectives, the rights of others become a liability thrust upon the individual.

It can be argued that positive liberty isn’t necessarily liberty at all; at least not for everyone involved.

Degrees of inequality can often be vague. Material inequality is most easily detected, and it’s the central preoccupation of anti-poverty activists. Other markers of inequality are harder to identify, and are the central preoccupation of growing legions of activists who, more often than not, share common cause with anti-poverty activists.

This difficulty in defining non-material inequality often leads to an open-ended quest to discover new markers for inequality that often lends strength to grievance-based political agendas.

Equality is intrinsically relational and comparative. One can only judge themselves to be unequal to someone else so long as that person is near enough to them to compare. Moreover, these comparisons can be drawn on any number of topics; an individual can be wealthier than another but less talented. An individual could be poorer than another, but in a preferred caste.

This argument essentially pits libertarianism against egalitarianism. Libertarianism holds that freedom is a good thing. Any restrictions imposed on liberty are prima faciewrong, and must be justified.

Egalitarianism however, holds very different ideals. Egalitarians demand that people be provided with equal amounts of whatever is at stake. Egalitarians believe that people have a fundamental right to equality, and that the people who control important resources are obliged to distribute it equally.

Of course, there are some things that cannotbe equalized – such as personal attributes and talents. No matter how important a double amputee may think it is, he will never be able to throw a football as well as Peyton Manning. No matter how important a paraplegic may think it is, he will never be able to run as fast as Donovan Bailey.

These are simple facts of life. No egalitarian demands that such things be equalized.

However, egalitarians are content to demand that at least some of the proceeds earned by those with greater talents – or who enjoy greater opportunities – be distributed by those who do not enjoy such talents or opportunities.

Egalitarians doseek to equalize opportunity. They do this through affirmative action and equity hiring programs. However, there’s only a certain extent to which opportunities can actually be equalized.

“The thesis that we are entitledto equal opportunity, that we have a right to it, lends itself readily to analysis for present purposes, because opportunitiesare normally extendedby some persons to others,” Narveson writes (Narveson, 2010)[3]. “Morality recognizes that the rulestreat no selected subset of persons better or worse than others. But those rules may permit everyonethe same right to be partial.”

As will be seen later in this essay, even those most dedicated to equalizing opportunity are willing to allow themselves this privilege of partiality.

It may seem absurd to think of liberty as a resource; make no mistake freedom is a resource as much as any other. Like any other resource, it’s one that requires constant stewardship and must be used wisely.

However, some egalitarians have taken it upon themselves to demandotherthings for those they deem disadvantaged in this regard: namely, dignity and respect. They’ve dedicated themselves to using the same tools used to provide the disadvantaged with othercrucial resources with these same things.

“Egalitarians typically claim that persons who are well below the average level in respect of the variable they think society should be concerned with have what is called a positive right to be supplied, by all and sundry among those who have the means, with whatever will bring them up to some level reasonably close to the average,” Narveson writes (Narveson, 2010)[4].

These egalitarians – often operating under the guise of human rights activists, or under the guise of disinterested academics – believe it’s the responsibility of the state to provide for the respect and dignity of disadvantaged minorities. They, like Dworkin, deny any value for negative liberty if positive liberty – and with it, an equal distribution of respect, dignity, opportunity and material resources -- is to be assured.

“Those who argue for there being no significant difference between negative and positive rights because of the costs of enforcement assume that it is exclusively the duty of the state to do the enforcing in question,” Narveson writes (Narveson, 2010)[5].

The tools that such egalitarians have adopted to enforce this agenda vary widely.

It’s the tools that such egalitarians have adopted to enforce equal respect and dignity that have provided the ideological enemies of western society – those who would tear it down in order to rebuild it in their own image – with the weaknesses to use against it.

They have allowed the viral pathogens of extreme ideologies to infect the body of western society so thoroughly as to turn these illnesses auto-immune.

In Canada, these pathologies have infiltrated the academy via the degeneration of academic standards and the state via the country’s Human Rights Commissions.