A Theory Of Equality

The paper is to take a systematic and reasoned empirical account of the theory of equality using socio-political system as a reference frame and connects ethical values such as equality and distributive justice to legitimacy and stability of political order. It examines the logical basis of equality and inequality and explains the historical changes of inequality to equality, analyzes the contending claims of equality and their final decision in the political system, expounds the relations between equality and difference, efficiency, examines the historical evolution of equality, etc., then points out the challenges facing equality in modern society, and concludes with the theory of equality of basic social security.1. The concept of equality is a complicated concept, a compound of the descriptive concept of equality, equality as sameness, and the normative concept of equality, equality as same treatment. Equality as sameness is descriptive and can constitute factual statements which should be put under the light of empirical evidence, while equality as same treatment is prescriptive and constitute normative judgments which should be justified. The distinction of the two concepts of equality is conducive to the comparison of various theories of equalities.2. Justice is logically more fundamental than equality and can provide a basis for both equality and inequality, using the principle "same treatment of similar persons and different treatment of different persons".3. Claims of desert, moral desert and social entitlements as the criterion for distributive justice have all been suggested, but none of them can solve all the disputes on the criterion for distributive justice. The practical criterion for distributive justice is one that is based on desert but concocted with others, such as need.4. When the disputes cannot be solved academically, it must be solved politically. There is not an objective, independent criterion to solve the disputes among different claims of equality, because people have different categories of interests which are often not commensurable. Thus the solution of different claims of equality is eclectic and the contending claims of equality must compromise to each other.Equality as distribute justice is very closely related to the legitimacy and stability of political order, and the accomplishments of the goals of equality are secured only by the monopolistic political power.5. As an important political value, equality is not ultimate as an end but instrumental to political legitimacy, and therefore must be balanced and traded off with other political values in political process. Equality must be traded off with economic efficiency. Equality can sometimes promote efficiency, but most of the time it must be traded off with efficiency because too high degrees of equality would curb economic efficiency.Equality must be checked and balanced with difference, which is common everywhere in society. Undue discrepancies can cause many problems, especially social and political instability, abase the legitimacy of social distributive order. Therefore undue discrepancies in wealth and income must be corrected, often in equality’s name.6. Closed caste system was the common characteristic of traditional human society before modernization. The historical changes of inequality to equality is not a coincidence beyond human comprehension, but an evitable outcome of scientific revolution, which shakes the superstition, sorcery, and ignorance that support various caste system. Human accomplishments in equality have been institutionalized in political constitution and other laws as human rights, suffrage, and various property rights.7. Secularization, individualism, monopoly, social production, and the lost of traditional security measures propose big challenges to equality in modern society. The mass production in modern society results in the disconnection not only of production and consumption, but also of production and distribution. Comparatively in traditional society, the production of wealth was relatively independent and the distribution of wealth was naturally linked with the process of production. No traditional measure of security can be counted on to the realization of distributive justice in modern society. The successful coping with these challenges needs a new distributive justice, which includes comprehensive and thorough governmental intervention.The choice we are facing is not the selection between equality and inequality, but one among different equalities. The equality we need in modern society is the equality of basic social security.8. The mass production in modern society cannot guarantee everybody’s success even if every one of us works hard due to various reasons such as economic fluctuation, unemployment, bad luck, illness, etc.Basic social security has become a right out of the concerns of political stability even not for humanitarianism’s sake.As to the specific contents of basic social security and what is the proper level of social security a society should choose, none theories of equality or distributive justice can give a conclusive answer once and for all. The most they can do is to provide an approach to this problem. Each political system will make its own decision to these problems.The equality of basic social security is a modest claim of equality which underscores the self-organizing sub-systems such as the free market system, but it will correct the distributive problems of the first distribution by various redistribution measures so that every member of society will be guaranteed to get a basic social security.9. For many developing countries, the biggest problem of equality is not inequality, but injustice, i.e., the inequality as injustice. The unjust inequality causes the sentiments of unfairness and injustice which are inductive to political instability.The problems that China is facing in distributive area can also be called the inequality as injustice which debases the moral sentiments of the public and causes widespread frustration and social resentments. These problems are rent-seeking, corruption, non-transparency of public expenditure, embezzlement, the lack of independent and effective supervision of public finance, the extraordinarily high income and fringe benefits of the employees in the state-owned enterprises, the luxury consumption of the management of the state-owned firms, the non-opening of public positions to the public, and inequality of opportunity. These problems are urgent and should be tackled as soon as possible.