Challenges Faced by Socialism/Egalitarianism

Is the equality of rights even a good thing? Do people even want it? People, being individual, have different wants and needs. The group mentality would then be forced onto the individual. How is this beneficial?

The most important issue is whether equality of results is practical. History shows that it is completely impractical. The only thing that equality of results has accomplished where it has been implemented is to spread poverty and famine. It has never raised the living standards of those it claimed to benefit, but has only lowered them. As has been noted by many – “capitalism is the uneven distribution of wealth, and socialism the even distribution of poverty.”

Egalitarians have confused the meaning of Jefferson ’s “all men are created equal.” While this is one of the most important concepts in the Declaration of Independence , it has nothing to do with equality of results. Obviously, it can not mean people are identical. Nature creates us as individuals, all with different talents, characteristics, and desires. All it can mean is that all people have equal liberty, and an individual should have the complete freedom to choose how he or she wants to live. Egalitarianism is actually at odds with this concept, and would try to force individuals to accept the dictates of the masses.

Is it really equality that we are after? At first glance, equality seems to be a noble ideal and one that should be pursued. Take the gap in incomes for instance. We believe in equality when one person is earning $20,000 and another is earning $100,000. Do we feel as strongly when one person is earning $1,000,000 and the other is earling $100,000? Perhaps the problem is not that the poor have less than the rich, but rather that the poor do not have enough--a sufficient level of resources to provide a good life or a reasonable prospect of a good life. The suggestion then is that sufficiency not equality is what per se matters. How one's condition compares to the situation of other people is not important in itself. What is morally important is that people have enough to bring them over the threshold of decent life prospects.