I think it is the case. For example: To “get ahead” you need to inspire others’ confidence in your capability - otherwise you won’t get the loan, you won’t find a business partner, etc. If you then have a win you can drive a smarter car and live in a better suburb. Your visible success will get you a bigger loan, allow entree to bigger business deals. It just would not be “getting ahead” if you started again from the same position. That is only an example but I think it is a general phenomenon: “nothing succeeds like success”.

Hopefully that saves me from answering details of what the ideal type of equality of opportunity is. I reckon all I really need there is that the two kinds of equality cannot be confused. I do not agree E of outcome is a red herring: it is what drives charity, for example. As I said above, I think the sentiment is widespread on the left.

This ideal-type approach is indeed the same as what economics does with its homo economicus and, I think, other propositions. (”Full information” is one and there must be heaps of them but I’m not an economist.) And economics is the one social science that seems to be effective.

So what does my application of the approach bring? You mention the ideal type “two-person” economy. I suggest this is a mistake, that it cannot exist - if you allow that we do attempt to apply both equalities. I showed that both can only be had in a hierarchy. But a hierarchy will require that the ideal minimum economy has to be three persons. Two of them are in a state of equal opportunity while the third enforces the rules to ensure that the winner (if any) withdraws.

As economics recognises, regulation and contracts and courts are essential. The two person economy ignores this. As I wrote here or on Quiggin a month or two ago, the market cannot work unless there is a policeman standing by - a big chap in a uniform. The “minimum economy” is two people doing the deal plus a man with a gun.

Another place this is overlooked is in game theory experimentation. There are three players: the two whose interaction gets written up and the third one in the white coat who makes and enforces the rules.

I say: no hierarchy - no market. It may be rude for me to tell economists they need to review their basic model but my deduction seems pretty sound and it does correspond to the reality.

The sociolgist’s ideal types serve the same purpose as the economist’s little two-person, two-good economies, so I can relate to the approach. I haven’t seen the idea applied to rules or principles before — as opposed to people or institutions — so that wasn’t quite what I expected, but I’m here to learn, after all.

I can’t say I quite understand what you’re doing here, since we all seemed to be agreed that equality of outcome is a red herring, because no-one is advocating it anyway. I’m also uneasy about your ‘premise’ that ‘unequal outcomes… provide unequal opportunities to the winners.’ It all depends on the rules of the game, doesn’t it? That’s what I was getting when I asked how often, in the name of equal opportunity, one gets a second chance. In most games, you can press an advantage up to a point, but at certain intervals — after a ’round’ has been played, or a goal scored, the players line up in their starting positions. The goal of equal opportunity, while in my view indispensible, has to be fleshed out with answers to these kinds of questions befoer it can bee applied in practice.

“Ideal types” are an effective path to understanding. They might be THE path but at any rate, a path. Galileo insisted on discussing a pendulum that had no friction, had a weightless string and a weight that took up no physical space. His friend and patron, Guidibaldo del Monte, made fun of him because this did not correspond to reality. Galileo’s approach was the fruitful one. I get this homily from: Matthews, Michael R. 1993. “Constructivism and science education: some epistemological problems.” Journal of Science Education and Technology 2(1):359-370.

Examples are everywhere. Newton’s first law says an undisturbed body moves in a straight line at a constant velocity forever. There is not a single instance in the heavens or on earth yet this ideal concept is essential to myriad undertakings. Recently I glanced through a large anatomy textbook. It had lots of photos but it was also full of sketches. A sketch conveys by idealising. A political cartoon does something similar. In short, we understand the world through ideal types. Platonic forms, if you wish. Nothing normative here: there’d be an ideal tyranny, an ideal cancer.

Weber introduced the “ideal type” to social science but social scientists generally don’t apply it. Let me do so with equality.

The ideal types hardly need defining. “Equality of outcome” would be everyone having exactly equal access to the same resources, i.e. the same wealth and the same status. “Equality of opportunity” would be everyone having the same chance to make a go of his or her life. At birth? At age 21? Take your pick: the essential point is the notion of exact equality of opportunity. These definitions are themselves not crucial. Important seems to be (1) they are ideal, i.e. extreme or pure, and (2) they are different, i.e. not to be confused - unlike much discussion where they do get mixed up.

A liberal has to be in favour of both. Let’s insist on both.

Premise: equal opportunity, when grasped, leads to unequal outcomes which provide unequal opportunities to the winners. Therefore: (a) to preserve equal opportunity, winners must withdraw from the social environment; (b) to preserve equality of outcome, all winners must win the same prize. After withdrawal, if both equalities are to continue for the winners, they would need to join a new set of equals for an equal chance at another common prize.

To achieve all this will require obedience to rules which will require rule makers and rule enforcers — i.e. hierarchy. Conclusion: hierarchy is the only way to achieve both equalities simultaneously. I expect the corollary to hold too: that the only way to make a hierarchy is to introduce the other two equalities simultaneously.

An astonishing deduction, surely. Let us look at it a bit more discursively.

All members of a given rank must receive the same benefits (that being very nearly what “rank” means) while at the same time they all have, in principle, the same opportunity to compete to rise to the next rank. Inequality is inherent to hierarchy (that being very nearly what hierarchy means) and the higher the rank the greater the opportunities and the outcomes, but within each rank equality of both outcome and opportunity obtains. So the simultaneous realising of those two kinds of equality can be achieved through equality under the rules, rules which stipulate equal treatment for equal people. This last is the ideal “equality before the law”.

Apart from the unexpectedness of such an illiberal result to a liberal ambition, the interesting thing is that the solution turned out to be the third ideal type. These three concepts of equality have been around for, I suppose, a couple of centuries and no one (it seems) ever noticed that they fit together neatly.

You can see why I back away from the normative and why I was (and am) keen to know what philosophers have had to say about equality under law.

In this light, it seems to me that what you’re calling luck egalitarianism is an entirely reasonable first step in developing a position regarding state redistributive measures. The next step comes when you notice that some bad luck is avoidable if people are willing to insure against it, and that, in between the extremes, there’s a wide spectrum of cases. But these difficulties are not a reason to repudiate the principle. Nor is the fact that human dignity isn’t just a matter of material wealth.

“There are two societies. In one, everyone makes a living at some occupation–say, fishing–in which the amount people earn over the course of a year is fairly closely determined by their skill and effort. Incomes will not be equal in this society–some people are better at fishing than others, some people are willing to work harder than others–but the range of incomes will not be that wide. And there will be a sense that those who catch a lot of fish have earned their success.

In the other society, the main source of income is gold prospecting. A few find rich mother lodes and become wealthy. Others find smaller deposits, and many find themselves working hard for very little reward. The result will be a very unequal distribution of income. Some of this will still reflect effort and skill: Those who are especially alert to signs of gold, or willing to put in longer hours prospecting, will on average do better than those who are not. But there will be many skilled, industrious prospectors who do not get rich and a few who become immensely so.

Surely the great majority of Americans, no matter how conservative, instinctively feel that a nation that resembles the second imaginary society is a worse place than one that resembles the first. Yet there is also no question that our nation today is much less like the benign society of fishermen–and much more like the harsh society of prospectors–than it was a generation ago.”

But if you mean, do I subscribe to some neat and tidy off-the-shelf position that I think is invulnerable to criticism, then no.

A few years ago I got up in front of a class of undergrads and told them that there were three forms of equality — equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and equality of outcome. It all seemed simple enough at the time.

I may also have suggested that any government that tried to put equality of outcomes into practice would find itself thrown out of office because most voters think that equal rewards for unequal performance is unfair. And naturally, attempting to make incomes perfectly equal would wreck the economy. And yes, simple equality before the law would mean letting people starve in the streets.

But now I’m not really sure that I knew what I was talking about. It’s fine to say that equality before the law is what Robert Nozick advocated, but I think I need to do better than that. To be honest, I’m not sure that I’ve got a bulletproof answer (which is why I was interested in seeing Mike have a go).

As an egalitarian I agree that all human beings are entitled to equal concern and respect. But it’s not entirely clear to me what this means in practice.

First up, I think it’s ridiculous to limit the discussion to wealth and income. I agree with Elizabeth Anderson when she says that egalitarianism is opposed to inegalitarianism:

Inegalitarianism asserted the justice or necessity of basing social order on a hierarchy of human beings, ranked according to intrinsic worth. Inequality referred not so much to distributions of goods as to relations between superior and inferior persons.

In making the argument Anderson refers to Iris Marion Young. I find Young’s work interesting but I’m not entirely convinced by all her arguments.

Clearly human wellbeing is as much about our relationships with each other as it is about our relationship with things. For example, imagine that everyone believes that you are a violent child molester (even though it’s not true). Imagine that you can never clear your name or disguise your identity. Your name and face are on billboards. Everyone is civil to you and you can still work, shop etc. Is there any amount of money that can compensate you for this? Probably not.

So I think that equality has something to do with social inclusion. However I’m not sure what this means for policy.

And nobody I know is in favour of equal outcomes in all domains of life. For example, I’ve never heard of an egalitarian trying to outlaw the Olympic games because it distributes medals unequally. And I’ve never heard anyone argue that all races should be handicap races so that everyone has an equal chance of winning gold if they train hard enough.

Michael Walzer wrote a book called ‘Spheres of Justice’ where he invoked the idea of complex equality (John Elster has also written about something similar — ‘Local Justice’). The idea is that what counts as equality depends on the institutional context. To me this sounds reasonable. But it’s a difficult position to develop.

Avishai Margalit has written a book called the ‘The Decent Society’ that argues that a decent society is one whose institutions do not humiliate people. It’s a simply written book but I think it’s dealing with something profound.

One problem that I think is very difficult is the scope of egalitarian institutions. John Rawls has an argument that’s made explicit in the ‘Law of Peoples’ that the difference principle only applies within a particular nation. There’s something to this, but there’s also much more to say.

So the truth is, I don’t have a neat position that I can outline to you and then defend. What I have is a set of ideas and problems that I want to discuss. Sometimes discussing them makes things clearer and sometimes it just makes things more complicated.

One thing I am willing to say with confidence is that we should not turn the country over to philosophers.

While there may agreement that the ant’s rewards resulted from his efforts, and the grasshopper’s misery and deprivation from his indolence and irresponsibility, it will be harder to get agreement on whether the two insects’ rewards and punishments are proportional to their respective actions and inactions. A related question is, if I squander my opportunities at one point in my life, how long must I wait before I’m entitled, in the name of equal opportunity, to another chance? Or does equal opportunity mean only one opportunity each? These are pretty intractable questions, but not enough to make the principle of equal opportunity — or luck egalitarianism, if anyone insists on that term — invalid.

Don: you are pretty adept at directing other people’s positions. But what about laying your own cards on the table. Do you currently subscribe to any form of egalitarianism, and if so, what?

Maybe you could me what you mean by equality before the law and give me some other examples of things that violate it. For example, if we legislated for a negative income tax, would that be a violation of equality under law?

There is a Wikipedia stub with this:

According to the eminent Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, equality before the law and material equality are incompatible, arguing that material inequality is a natural consequence of legal equality: “From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time”.

Hayek seems to assume equality under law. He doesn’t mention that it is also in conflict with with E of opportunity. In practice women, children, the insane get different treatment and we licence some people to sleep under bridges whenever they qualify through some means test. For example legal aid is to provide something like equality of opportunity to rescue people from the rigours of equality before the law.

We have drifted from luck which began this thread and of which I remain sceptical. Here are a couple of references talking about the three kinds of equality.

Miller, David. 1976. Social justice. Oxford: Clarendon.
Feldman, Stanley. 1999. “Economic values and inequality.” in Measures of political attitudes, edited by John P Robinson, Phillip R Shaver, and Lawrence S Wrightsman San Diego: Academic Press.

A Feldman quote:

“Egalitarianism has several distinct dimensions that must be distinguished. There is first equality of opportunity, the view that each person should have the same initial chance of succeeding. Then there is formal or legal equality, the view that all people should be treated equally. Finally there is equality of rewards, a desire usually less for complete equality than for a limited range of wealth…” (161)

The debate over rules is a debate over what the laws should be. As Rawls writes, the legal system is “a public system of rules addressed to rational beings for the organization of their conduct in the pursuit of their substantive interests.”

As for equality under the law, isn’t this really just a demand that the “rules are public, that similar cases are treated similarly, that there are no bills of attainder, and the like”? If the laws only apply to some people some of the time then you’re not living under the rule of law.

Laws which satisfy the constraints of pure procedural justice can constrain inequalities of wealth and income. Anderson explains why.

Anderson writes on procedural justice, like Rawls, but then I suppose any philosopher who is trying to find a middle road on equality (which seems to me to be something any liberal has to address) will be seeking to establish rules, or principles that can be made into rules. What about my specific point of “equality under the law”?

This is the equality that Anatole France was caustic about: “The law, in a majestic concern for equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal their bread.” Adam Smith said it more prosaically: “Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

I can list some pol sci and lawyer discussions of this but I don’t know if there is a philosophy debate on it. Do you know any? We have these principles of E of outcome and opportunity but the real world has to put up with the law. What should be its principle?

I was a bit surprised by this comment:

What the philosophers don’t seem to discuss but lawyers and political scientists do, is equality under the law (or equal treatment of equal people) which is the pragmatic compromise of the other two - ie let the properly qualified person interpret the official rules to achieve a proper outcome. That will be by definition both a fair process and a fair outcome.

Maybe my experience of the literature is biased, but it seems to me that there are plenty of philosophers who discuss Rawls’ ideas about ‘pure procedural justice.’ For example, here’s Elizabeth Anderson:

In a system of pure procedural justice, the justice of outcomes is not definable apart from the procedures that produce them. Judgments of justice attach fundamentally to rules or procedures; outcomes are just in virtue of the justice of the process that produces them. Games exemplify a system of pure procedural justice. As long as the rules of a game are fair, any outcome that results from everyone’s following the rules is fair.

But then X commits a crime and those who would say it is not his fault will not admit that he really had an equal opportunity. Never (unless he is actually out of the aristocracy).

I can’t set out schools of thought but isn’t that what affirmative action is all about? Yes, that is only for the unlucky but isn’t the unluck never-ending? Yes, the school that wants redistribution after the luck is eliminated surely does not exist. But E of outcome proponents will never recognise said elimination. Grasshoppers are born that way!

This example may be in the wrong direction. An opponent of “freely” choosing might be more worried about making successful choices - profiting on the house or the share price, ie unfairly benefiting from your inherited competencies. That means other people become losers who didn’t actually do anything. Compounding the sin will the view that the profits are parasitic.

I am no philosopher but some reading a month or two ago left me with the impression that philosophers were generally against equality of opportunity! Here are a couple of examples I can pull up readily:

Schaar, John H. 1981 [1967]. “Equality of opportunity and beyond.” in Legitimacy in the modern state, edited by John H Schaar. London: Transaction Publishers.

Joseph, Lawrence B. 1980. “Some ways of thinking about equality of opportunity.” The Western Political Quarterly 33(3):393-400.

E of opp is essentially concern for fair process. E of outcome is a concern for a fair outcome.

What the philosophers don’t seem to discuss but lawyers and political scientists do, is equality under the law (or equal treatment of equal people) which is the pragmatic compromise of the other two - ie let the properly qualified person interpret the official rules to achieve a proper outcome. That will be by definition both a fair process and a fair outcome.

Maybe the independent, individualistic, equality of opportunity position is currently so pervasive that it is becoming impossible to be forthrightly for E of outcome, so one has to argue in terms of luck and deserts in order to be in the debate. Put another way: could luck and deserts be a backs-to-the-wall attempt to rescue SOME equality of outcome?

What you haven’t demonstrated is that there is a significant school of thought that would confiscate the earnings of ants and give them to grasshoppers, even after any differences due to luck had already been eliminated.

It’s not the same as equality of outcomes because it doesn’t aim to eliminate the impact of freely made choices (eg you decide to burn down your house for fun) or option luck (eg you put your life savings into a risky tech start-up and lose everything).

But it’s not ordinary equality of outcomes either. This is because differences in things like inherited ability are treated as brute luck.

I think the distinction between brute luck and option luck adds something to the debate. Perhaps not everybody does.

BTW: I can’t think of any egalitarian philosophers who take an equality of outcomes position. As far as I can tell the position is a straw man.