In my previous post, was a YouTube clip on Milton Friedman giving his argument for capitalism based on a very basic tenet — capitalism does not aim for equality but can naturally drive man closer to it, but on the other hand socialism will only dream of equality but cannot achieve anything tangible in reality. Basically, he is holding a practical stance on “achieving [economic] equality”.

I’d personally like to take a step back and question the basic assumptions behind the idea of equality.

1)  Is equality a value? Why is it valued?

2) Is equality just man’s fantasy? Can it be achieved?

3) Is every individual man similar in value to another? In other words, is man born equal?

4)  What does “equal” mean? Equal in talents? Equal in capabilities to produce value? Equal just in terms of the value of their lives? Is the value of a murderer’s life equal to the value of an average man’s life or a doctor’s life? How does this translate to economic equality?

4) Should we try to achieve equality even in the case where man is not born equal?

4) Is economic inequality inherently perverse? What if every man had all their basic needs met, despite there being a tremendous amount of economic disparity between the rich and the poor — would this still pose a problem for society?

Friedman argues in a lot of his videos/lectures that capitalism has done more good for all of mankind than any other system put in place. He argues that despite the terrible working conditions in London, say during Charles Dickin’s time, one needs to compare the economic state of the people before and after the industrial revolution to see if those people were better off or not after the introduction of machines to propel capitalism forward. One contemporary example would be the exploitation of cheap labor in China. In this case, the question we should ask ourselves is: were these people better or worse off with this new employment? If they are not currently exploited for cheap labor, would they be employed in the first place? In my opinion, I think cheap labor is better than no labor. But of course, I have not done much research on this issue so I’m not sure what these people would have been doing otherwise. I do not think that they were physically forced to take on these jobs, and that this was probably their best option at the time.

One also cannot deny the kind of economic prosperity capitalism has provided for countries like America, Britain etc. and the BRIC countries nowadays. With economic prosperity, global standards of living have increased tremendously over the years and the increasing longevity of people in developed nations are a testament to that. And yes, it is inherent in the case of capitalism that this economic progress comes at a cost where standards of living increase for every socio-economic level, however the economic disparity increases (exponentially?) as well. If huge economic disparity is the cost society must endure in exchange for lifting the general population out of poverty, then is it not morally right to utilize capitalism this way? What does it matter if one is rich and the other is poor if both people are better off than before capitalism had its way? In other words, what is it about the idea of equality that really stirs us up despite us being relatively better off than before? Would we be happy if the whole country was equally as poor? Are we willing to give up higher standards of living in the name of equality?

> I will post another post on being happy in a more equal but poorer society, some other time.