Muck’s Five Minutes – Equality – What is It?

Equality – what is it??  Or is it at all?

“Equality” is a beastly word.   Why beastly?  Because it means something different to every person who says it or hears it.  It is slippery as the best of sexual lubricants and as hard to grasp as a nettle in full thorn.  It is a word that is capable of angering even the most placid of every under-appreciated citizen around the globe and is the bane of the Elite and Powers That Be who perch high atop the economic pile and are trying (with ever greater success) to stay there or climb even higher.

I think “equality” is an accident that happens only in passing and only for a moment. It is recognized by the symbol “=” and when place in a basic “equation”  so: X = Y , means X is the identical to Y; but for how long if both X and Y represent living creatures and are in constant independent motion (in three dimensions) under the control of free will and with all the foibles of a human being???

The Communist Manifesto that is thoroughly discredited and in operation only in such progressive places as Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia and is now left flopping around the gutters of wishful political thinking (“If only it had been me running the joint, I’d have made it work!”)  that held the goal of communism was equality – top to bottom – of the citizens of a country so ruled.

Of course, modified somewhat by the necessity of a Marxist “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This turns “equality” on its’ head as far as producing bread and beans is concerned.  It turned out that a country so ruled turns into a herd of equally poor citizens, many living by the efforts of others with yet another elite dressed in classy communist rags who lived high on the hog.  The able bodied just shoveled food in the trough and cleaned the pens while the feeble nibbled at the trough run off.

Yet, even today, when a government program fails, the calls are not “Do away with the sorry program!”

Bad Government programs have the quality of a teachers (in a union). They won’t work and you can’t get rid of them!”.

Oh, no, the plaintive bawling is for “We need more government regulation, supervision and permits! That’ll fix it!”, which, of course, is the exact opposite of what should be called for in trying to “fix” it.  An unworkable program cannot be fixed by making it more unworkable just like one person or a nation (or the world) as a whole cannot borrow or counterfeit itself into prosperity .  No government worker (or teacher in a union) has ever considered such a truth as that because it threatens their own breadbasket.

And to make it worse, “Equality” is at the bitterly sharp pointy end of a good portion of the spear of governments’ efforts to impoverish all of us in its’ name.

Let’s see now just what is “equality”:  (the short version via my computer’s dictionary!

“The state of being equal, esp. in status, rights, and opportunities.

• In mathematics the condition of being equal in number or amount.

• In mathematics a symbolic expression of the fact that two quantities are equal; an equation.

ORIGIN late Middle English : via Old French from Latin aequalitas, from aequalis (see equal )”

The “esp” (standing for “especially”, I’m sure), puts a kink in equality on the spot.  I can grasp the “state of being equal” but why the “especially”.  Does this mean that some kinds of equality are more important than others?  Does this mean that “equality” is not equal in all cases but depends upon other factors?  Some applications of the word are more importantly equal than others?

Who will determine which equality applies to what subject?  My tomato is equally tasty as yours?  My bank account is most assuredly not equal to yours? Why is “equal” only a constant when applied to mathematics?  Isn’t “equal” – well – “equal”?

Why should equal on one subject not be equally as important when applied to another?

Primarily because “equal” is a totally subjective, eye of the beholder value except in mathematics – which is (almost) totally objective – except when you use calculus or Quantum Mechanics. (In Quantum Math, a thing can “be” and “not be” at the same time and in Calculus everything is moving around all the time!) Governments will never master any of it.

Gee, I guess that means “equal” ceases to be “=” and becomes “>” (greater than) or “<” (less than) depending upon who, what, when, where and how it is applied.   This is what I mean when I said “equality is a slippery word”.  I meant it.

I could pound this concept of not equal unless you and I agree it’s equal.  This is so unmercifully tedious, especially (that word again!) if we look at the definition of “equal” which is much more involved and therefore even more boring and applied to even broader classes of “equality” but I won’t bother because it bores me even more.

The truth is, outside relatively simple mathematics, there is nothing equal about anything. Instead, everything is relative such that an East Indian peasant with a full stomach from simple fare is likely to be as satisfied physically as the Permit Raj living down the road inside his government furnished compound after he ate a considerably more tasty and balance meal than the peasant.  They are equally full but got there from significantly different directions and, no doubt, the Permit Raj enjoyed the variety and flavors to a much greater extent.  But they’re both full.

It is relative in such that a banker working a 50 hour week is paid “X” amount of money while a window server at Hamburger Heaven, working 30 hours a week makes “Y” amount of money.  I guarantee you that, non-equal working hours aside, (the Hamburger Heaven employee works those 30 hours so Obamacare will not apply to her job so she’s on the hook for health insurance or a fine!) there is nothing “equal” between these two individuals or the remuneration they receive for time spent on the job.

Should we commit the wealth of our country, sacrificing other priorities, to try and “equalize” the money made by both, perhaps the homes lived in by both, their transportation needs, clothes or anything else?

I posit absolutely not.

If she is Hispanic or black, their communities spokes-idiots would take the opposite position and say “Yes! The banker makes too much money and we must strip him of that excess to share with the Hamburger Heaven window server.”  Now why is that? They don’t do the same work.

The banker has an economics degree from Wharton and the window server didn’t finish high school. The banker has worked at the same position for 15 years and the window server has worked for four different hamburger/fast food outfits in the last year.  Where is “equality” in any of that?

It widens (if you can believe it!) for those on welfare or, as some call it “the dole”.  President Obama has changed welfare from “workfare” to true welfare by eliminating the requirement that those collecting the government dole  look for employment, much less work if such employment is available.  A very old truism applies, “If you pay a man not to work, then he will continue not to work in order to be paid.”

By eliminating the search for or actual work necessity from welfare requirement, our Government insures the lack of equality, opportunity and responsibility of the welfare recipient to ever achieve equality with the banker.  The welfare collector is already more than equal to the window server who works her 30 hours a week and takes home less money than the welfare taker who works at watching TV, sleeping, cashing in her food stamps for groceries, beer and skittles, uses Medicaid for any medical problems and is essentially a small – but important – anchor on the prosperity of the country??

The taker of non-work-requirement welfare is also encouraged by the “system”, since she doesn’t have to work at any job to collect her benefits;  to do what? Well, the more children she has, the more the benevolent government pays her in child support or any of dozens and dozens of programs designed to shower unwed mothers with benefits, money and, in fact, everything except a father for her children – which may be a time-shared duty between any number of men.

Can the banker collect any of these benefits for himself or his family?  Nope.…  Now where’s the equality in that?

I maintain and must say again, there is no such thing as equality outside of mathematical equations.

Equality in the real world is a fleeting occurrence that happens when two or more people pass in the night, finding themselves almost identical in many of the more important ways, only moments later to find one has diverged from the other in wealth, health, motivation, ability or any one of the thousands of traits or differences between each and every human being.

To sum up, any and all attempts at forcing “equality” within the human sphere is domed to failure and never ends well and someone always ends up less “equal” than his neighbor.  It’s a fools errand and a waste of time, money, energy and  a huge morass of moral hazard rises at every turn.

What we need is more effort (and effort is required) to provide equal opportunity to anyone who can handle it.  Those who do and make a success of it will be “more equal” than those who refuse to grab for the golden ring or, after grabbing it, lose their footing, fall – and fail.  Those who fail must not be denied the opportunity to succeed yet again but they also must take the responsibility for making an attempt to grab another golden ring that is perhaps a bit lower on the merry-go-round of life.

This is, of course, simplistic in its’ solution.  As long as the welfare state is in existence in its’ present form, i.e. paying people not to improve their personal condition, there is nothing ahead of us but frustration, disappointment and continued failure.

This has been the human condition ever since we began keeping score by “money” of whatever form and probably before that in what could be traded by barter.

It never has worked and it never will.  Personal responsibility and hard work and study will out every time.  But never “equally”.

Conclusion:  Equality isn’t.

Please note that I totally exclude from this commentary, those members of our humanity who are truly disabled beyond any ability to work or the elderly who are in the same condition (both cases being verifiably proven with no freaking loopholes)..  In any society with any civility at all,  little children, elders and truly disabled should be cared for as a cost of being a successful society.

Author: MuckAbout

Retired Engineer and Scientist (electronic, optics, mechanical) lives in a pleasant retirement community in Central Florida. He is interested in almost everything and comments on most of it. A pragmatic libertarian at heart he welcomes comments on all that he writes. View all posts by MuckAbout