Equality: Part 2

Last time, I argued that equality under the law is the only equality that is worth having. Without it, the rights of a privileged few are safe — at least as long as they’re able to hang onto their privileged status — but everyone else’s rights can be trampled underfoot any time the folks in power find it to their advantage to do so. That’s one reason why countries that lack equal protection of the law are such hellholes, and why their primary export tends to be their own people, who flee them in droves and head for places like the United States, which they see as the land of opportunity.

Any other type of equality, however, is overrated at best, and at worst it’s downright dangerous. The reason is that when we make a fetish of equality, and consider it an unalloyed good, then we come to view inequality as an unalloyed evil. “Inequality” becomes synonymous in our minds with “injustice.”

But let’s be honest: “Inequality” is just another word for “difference.” Notice how when you call it a “difference,” its nefarious connotations vanish into thin air?

Consider this: My middle daughter is a truck driver, and she earns a higher income than my eldest daughter, who works in a coffee shop. My eldest earns more than my youngest, who is a teacher’s assistant at a dance studio. Income inequality? You could call it that, but all that really means is that they have different incomes. There’s nothing unjust or unfair about it; their respective incomes reflect their individual choices, which each made freely. But calling it “inequality” gives it the air of injustice and unfairness. “Difference” is morally neutral in its connotations. “Inequality” sounds like something that needs to be remedied.

Milking the politics of envy for all it’s worth, some opportunistic politician could come along and say to my youngest daughter, “It’s not fair that your sisters make more money than you. You work just as hard as they do, and your job is just as important as theirs. We should raise taxes on your sisters and then give that money to low-income people like you.” (God help any politician who tried that line on my daughter; she’d tell him to take his income-redistribution scheme and stick it where the moon never shines. She’s a firm believer in property rights and personal liberty.)

Now consider this: My sister is much better off financially than I am. This isn’t because she’s smarter than I am, and it’s not because she’s luckier than I am. It’s due to individual choices that were freely made.

The first two decades of her life and the first two decades of mine were remarkably similar. We were born to the same parents, grew up in the same house, went to the same schools, belonged to the same church, had the same influences and opportunities. We went to the same college, where we had many of the same professors and even majored in the same subject. She got married shortly after her graduation from college, and I got married soon after mine.

And there the similarity ends. After college, my sister got a job as an elementary school teacher, while her husband taught high school physical education and coached wrestling and other sports. After a couple of years of teaching, my sister went to graduate school to become a librarian. She worked as a librarian to put her husband through law school, and then he worked as a lawyer to put her through architecture school. By the time they reached their thirties, they were both well established in good jobs with good pay and benefits. They put off having a family until they were both 38 years old and had been married for 17 years, at which point they adopted two children. They hired sitters to care for the children so that neither of them had to sacrifice his/her career.

I took a very different path. After I married, I never worked outside the home, since I had no desire or need to do so. I gave birth to four children, and I raised them myself. I even home schooled them. In my spare time, I was involved with my church, did lots of volunteer work, sang for many years in a community choir, and did a lot of writing, public speaking, and media appearances on behalf of our local right to life organization. None of these activities brought in any income, but I was fortunate in that a) I married a man who was able and willing to be the sole breadwinner, and b) we’re both good at managing money and living within our means.

Although my husband is a hard worker and a good provider, the fact remains that he and I have twice as many kids and half as many incomes as my sister and her husband do; therefore it stands to reason that they are better off financially, by a very large margin. They have nicer houses (two of them), they drive newer, fancier cars, they take great vacations, they can eat out whenever they like, and they can look forward to a long, comfortable retirement. Meanwhile, we make do with one very modest house, we buy used vehicles and then drive them to death, we almost never take vacations, we have no hope of ever retiring, and we rarely eat out (our idea of a splurge is to order a pizza).

Income inequality? Absolutely — and 100% of it due to the choices we made. The great thing about being American is that we have the freedom to make the kind of life we want. Do I envy my sister because she has more money than I do? Not in the least. Does she envy me? Not at all. We each got what we wanted. That’s freedom.

In my next column, I will have more to say on the subject of income inequality and the ways that unscrupulous politicians demagogue it to enhance and expand their own power, to the detriment of our liberty.