"The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal." – Harrison Bergeron
The world is full of charm and beauty,
Born and bred, a noble’s duty.
But life can be cruel,
When your daddy’s a mule,
And you look like a horse’s patootie.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1968 collection, “Welcome to the Monkey House”, Vonnegut includes a satirical tale about the country’s derangement over inequality and how an unrestrained populace might resolve it. In his 8-page story, “Harrison Bergeron”, the Bergeron boy, Harrison, was too handsome, too athletic, and too smart—an intolerable state of affairs. And so, society got to work. The solution was clear: rubber nose (check), black-capped teeth (check), shaved eyebrows (of course), and 300 pounds of scrap metal to carry around. No justice, no peace, after all.
Today, as Elizabeth Warren attempts to cancel college debt for her political supporters, perhaps we should apply some of the Vonnegut wit. Suppose we take college graduates with high incomes and look for a way to make them more equal to the working class. We could saddle these upper-middle-class scholars with college loan debt that would be impossible to repay. Since many students at four-year colleges come from relatively affluent families and most of the borrowers tend to be wealthy, loan debt is the perfect foil to keep the masses equal. Student loan debt, therefore, is a proper handicap to keep everyone the same.
The truth is, however, there can be no equality. People are different. We are born and raised with unequal characteristics like beauty, intellect, strength, and work ethic. Some are more gifted than others, even within the same family. These differences create problems at an early age when our capacity to tolerate another’s gain is challenged. The ability to compare has been called the mother of all envy, and although envy is natural, how we deal with it is key. Envy can prompt you to try to imitate your rival or to simply work harder. Or envy can eat you alive.
The seduction of envy is the power to blame others. And as we’ve seen, envy, one of the seven deadly sins, has been transformed from vice to virtue in today’s story. Elevated to a position of justice, acts of envy can serve as a great leveler against perceived injustices. It is now one of the driving forces behind redistributive policies, a form of institutionalized envy. For some, a lower status for everyone is preferable to a mixed outcome.
Yet there is a difference between political equality – the equality of rights, and economic equality – the equality of outcomes. The government’s constitutional role is to create the rules of the game that make everyone equal before the law. The market then acts as a meritocracy that rewards those that provide the most value. If allowed to operate unfettered, market economies can never lead to equal outcomes. The same rules apply to all, but results can be vastly different.
Men are natural competitors, rivals, and even enemies. Some acquire a greater affinity for risk and obtain astonishing success. Others who learn to endure hardships and failures often experience a change of fortune over time. Even those born under the worst of conditions can rise to the top by employing their God-given talents or simply by working harder than anyone else.
Just as Harrison outgrew his hindrances faster than the handicapper general could create them, so will the men and women who develop the best of their abilities to achieve their highest end. The simple truth is - envy is a poison that destroys the envier and not the envied. No amount of obstacles will ever change that.
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