Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Uh, but Richard wanted to get us started.
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, Jennifer and, uh, Scott, Jason, David, others who have joining, uh, uh, thank you very much. I thought today that I would, uh, discuss what I call four major types of equality. And, um, the reason I want to do this is, uh, sometimes these types are seen as simply cumulative or additive. And I want to argue that they're act that they actually clash and that the one true type of equality in the list I'm going to give you is under assault because there's such widening belief in the others. So first of all, not to be too opaque about this. Let me just, just name the four and then I'll discuss them. Physiological equality. That's number one, number two equality before the law. Number three, equality of opportunity and number four equality of results sometimes called equality of outcome more recently equity.
Speaker 1 00:01:17 Um, and I'll, especially, obviously I'll elaborate on these. Um, the declaration famously says that all men are created equal, but everyone knows that. Of course, that does not mean the founders believed stupidly that we're all clones of each other, but it is interesting that the objective is view and the enlightenment view is that we do all share a faculty of reason. So there's some equality there you could point to. I'm not sure I would cause it call it physiological. Although we have a brain and a mind, a mind and a body as well. So, um, I would grant that, uh, aspect of equality, but it's a faculty. And as we know, it's a faculty that, uh, you have to exercise by choice. So there lots of differences can come into play because people don't always use the faculty or use it correctly, which means logically.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 So physiologically that is easy, pretty quickly easy to dismiss. I mean, other than identical twins, nobody claims that the equality sought is, uh, of the kind of Twilight zone type, where everybody looks the same and truly our clones. Uh, although you'd be surprised, some people even more twisted aspects of social engineering go that route, maybe in eugenics, but let's dismiss that for a moment and focus on the three most important equality before the law equality of opportunity and equality of results. I'm going to contend that the second to equality of opportunity and of result, uh, especially pushed to its logical, uh, consistency violates equality before the law necessarily has to violate equality before the law, that equality before the law is the only legitimate conception of equality we can go with. So we do have to chew on that, but I also want to provocatively suggests that the current concern with, and a ubiquitous nature of cronyism results from this, uh, cronyism, as we'll say, reflecting differential treatment, literally favoritism is, uh, really emanating from differential treatment before the law, which means it's emanating from an erosion of the principle of equality before the law.
Speaker 1 00:03:41 Then the question is why is this principle being eroded after all? It's one of the equality concepts, and if everyone's big on equality these days, why aren't they being on equality before the law? Okay, so let's start with that equality before the law, just in the vernacular would be something like everyone's treated the same, regardless of who they are based on whether they've committed a crime or it could be a civil offense. Let's, let's put crime and civil offenses together. But the idea of being this is lady justice, we all know as a blindfold on why is she blindfolded? Not because she's to be blind to the facts of the case. Not that she used to be blind to the law as written, you know, for example, rape is wrong, murder is wrong, robbery is wrong, that kind of thing. No. What she's to be blind to his, who is standing in front of her, the equality before the law argument is the idea that regardless of whether you're tall or short of different skin color of different genitalia of different ethnicity, uh, of different age of different political affiliation will get, go on and on and on those distinctions are to be irrelevant, irrelevant equality before law, meaning everyone's treated the same, regardless of those, technically non-essential, it's not as central to the potential law breaker.
Speaker 1 00:05:11 Now I don't have time here to go into subsidiary issues. Like wouldn't the equality before the law required just law, proper law, legitimate law, however you want to put it. And the answer there is yes. So for example, what if it was Jim Crow law? Jim we know is the Southern law post civil war where the south having lost the war, fought to preserve segregation in its laws and, you know, in all sorts of cases, schools and buses and public facilities and things like that. Right? Well that itself, when you think about it is a discriminatory law, it that technically it's not a law. I mean, if we're talking about legitimate law law, precisely law, that does not discriminate in these non-essential ways, they do discriminate between the murder and the non murder, the nopals between the white and black of murderers, for example. Uh, so that's, uh, let's just stipulate that, um, what we're talking about is legitimate laws and that's a whole different discussion of course, as to what laws are legitimate or not.
Speaker 1 00:06:19 The equality before the law principle also has this very famous idea that the rule of not law, not the rule of men. And what does that supposed to suggest? Well, that true lady justice is being blind, your position and your own identity on the bench or in the juror's box is not to bias your judgment. Again, the judgment is the law versus the claimed act and whether it's legal or not. So the rule of law, as opposed to the rule of man is another way I think of capturing the idea of the rule of objectivity versus the rule of subjectivity or the rule of, uh, uh, certainty safe versus capriciousness now equality of opportunity, which is on everyone's lips has been for years, um, seems to be related to equality before the law. But of course it's a separate formulation. So it's worth examining why it is, this is more than you, that people should be equal.
Speaker 1 00:07:21 Put it this way in their starting point in their birth status, if you will. And they argument and load. And the complaint of course, is that people are not born all in the same condition. They're born in different countries and different socioeconomic classes with different aptitude, with parents of varying responsibility and themselves intelligence and job prospects and things like that. And this is just what they're born into day, literally day one, not anything yet that happens after that. And, and why do they focus on that? Precisely because it's argued the birth person had no choice. Yeah. The old adage, you didn't pick your parents. I know you're paying, you can say your parents pick you, uh, if there was planned parenthood, but, uh, that's the claim. The claim is the birth person, uh, is not coming into the world equal. And therefore there's a problem.
Speaker 1 00:08:15 There's a problem. As it said, sometimes metaphorically, some people are born on third base and some people are born on first base. And some people I guess, are stuck in the dugout forever. Now, why is that metaphor used? Well, there are rules of the game in baseball, right? So that, so that the pretension seems to be here's the critique. The pretension is, seems to be that there's an equality of law out there. They'll call balls and strikes. Everyone's going by the same rules, but it's never going to be the case that everybody has the same aptitudes and, and capacities when born. So that, that is seen as a complaint as somehow an argument going strictly by equality before the law. But now this set set aside for a moment, the issue of what's done after the birth, the more the person grows, the more they have free will, the more they can choose their path.
Speaker 1 00:09:11 Presumably we believe in free wealth. The determinist would not believe this, but if, to the extent we believe in free, will we say, well, even in cases where the birth status is going to be different, it is different. It's undescended none. There's no identical circumstance, even within families, by the way, you get five kids or so born to the same parents, they're all coming at different times, maybe different locations as the family moves around. So you can never have like perfectly controlled experiments even there. But the idea is, or what if someone is born into great circumstances and then they blow it. They're born into rich families with high IQ parents who give them good morals, but, uh, you know, by their own choice, they make, as they say, bad life choices, they hang with the wrong kids. They do drugs, they don't study. They drop out many, many cases of this.
Speaker 1 00:10:02 The fact, well, I wouldn't know if it's mandated, but the fact that there were any cases of this shows that there's no guarantee that being born into a great circumstance, uh, set you on your way, uh, in electively. And likewise, the reds, the richest stories tell us that people born into what is considered lower circumstances can achieve great things. But what explains that it's an argument against the idea that equality of opportunity is all that relevant. Now, when you get to, let me just say, before I go to the quality of result, when you get to remedies, I just mentioned a remedy for equality before the law facing something like that. Jim Crow law, while the remedy would be, get rid of sense laws because they violate the basic principle, but already inequality of opportunity. We see if that is to be quote unquote, remedy, fixed ameliorated, you would have to start redistributing whatever the birth positions are.
Speaker 1 00:10:59 You would have to, for example, say in some family, well, you're really advanced the parents. I have an I, I Q a maybe if we can't tell a lower income and a lower socioeconomic family to read to their kids at night, maybe we could at least ban the reading of two kids at night by upper income people. So you see the kind of invasion that would have to occur from without to quote unquote, cure this inequality of opportunity, uh, can get quite nasty. Now, even if you just use redistribution through the welfare state, all the things purportedly relevant to a changing the circumstances like, uh, you know, early, uh, pre-school, uh, things and, uh, various housing things and various food stamps and things. What is the purpose? The purpose is to equalize more the starting point, uh, that we'd say well, that necessarily is going to impinge on the rights of those whose resources are taken, but for such programs.
Speaker 1 00:12:04 And so you're already violating equality before the law, because you're creating the two classes, one class disadvantaged, one class, supposedly advantaged a two citizens structure, right? The quality of the law is already out the window. Already. Lady justice is cooking through the mask and say, oh, I see that you're, you're wealthy and credentialed. And, uh, you don't have the same rights as these people who are not, we need to redistribute now the quality of results. This one, this one is more obvious to people that this is troubling. Uh, more so I think, than the equality of opportunity argument. Uh, and, and, and it's, it's strictly says the results, not the starting going, but the ending point has to be equal. And now the issue here is, well, the same issue I had before, how to achieve that, you would have to differentially treat people to get to that equality.
Speaker 1 00:13:06 So, so on the premise that in a free society with free will precisely because people are born differently and that they're not responsible to others for the position they're born into, they're neither to be credited with or, or charged with that people will, uh, have different aptitudes. They'll have different work ethics, they'll choose different paths, they'll decide on different career choices or what kind of education to pursue. And of course, if we only look at wealth and income, which people seem to be obsessed about people choose different careers are going to end up with different income and wealth. And it's not due to any kind of injustice in the system. But even if you turn to things less focused on, like, what about prizes? What about prestige? More? So say in the arts and scientists, what about those who get more academy awards than somebody else is that unfair at the end of the day?
Speaker 1 00:14:05 Why, why aren't academy awards more evenly distributed? The key here though, is if there is going to be this expected difference in outcome, perfectly natural, perfectly due to free choice. If you try to reverse that, if you try to quote unquote, correct, if you would net, as I said, you wouldn't necessarily have to in policy and legal rulings in regulation, in taxation, in subsidies, and almost every government type policy you can think of, you would have to start treating people differentially you would have, or groups, sometimes it's group this way, you would have to begin to discriminate in order to reflect a more equal outcomes. So this gets back to my original point that these types of equality, aren't just additive. They're not just cumulative as if, as if you could say something like, well, in the 18th century, we believe in equality before the law and that's perfectly fine.
Speaker 1 00:15:05 But then in the 19th century, we realized there should also be equality of opportunity and that's good. And I got more, more equality coming in. And then, you know, in the 20th century, we realized there should be a quality of resolve. And that's just a different flavor of the ice cream. We've got rice cream or choice here. No, no I'm saying that is not what's happening. It's clashing the equality of opportunity, inequality, clashing with equality before the law. Now let me just give some quick examples. So it's not too abstract here. And just some concrete examples that might make clear what I'm, what I'm getting at. Just take something as simple as tax rates. If everyone paid the same flat tax rate on their income, say 10%, you could argue that that is equality before the law. Now this is the tax law, of course not criminal law or civil law.
Speaker 1 00:16:02 Uh, but you could argue that that's equal treatment. Now it does mean however that the millionaire will end up paying more dollars taxes than the one who makes 10,000 a year. So the end result you can say is unequal in terms of the money contributed. But again, you can make the argument that if government's role is to preserve, protect, and defend individual rights, then private property that's key, and certain property owners have more property than others. The government's got to be more involved in protecting that. It isn't far-fetched to say possibly they should pay more dollar amount in taxes, but they would do that again with just the 10% flat tax rate. Now, what we have today in most systems is a graduated tax rate. As we know, it's called, it's called progressive it's that stair-step of where the more you make the higher the rate.
Speaker 1 00:16:53 So the highest rate in the 1950s was 90%. So every dollar you earned in that tax bracket, the government would take 90 cents of it. And you kept going to be 10%. The Reagan people brought that down to 28%, but even then the graduation was 10, 15%, 28%. Some people paid zero, of course. So that is unequal treatment. That is in my estimation, unjust, improper as it, as it, as it relates at least to the tax rate, the tax code here, that's it, that's an example of why is it treating people different is literally classifying them as you're wealthy and rich, and to treat you differently, not, not just treat, I'm literally going to take more of your income or wealth than I would for somebody else simply because there's a differential in the income. Antitrust would be another example befalls say under the regulatory, uh, big companies, big profitable, successful companies, ones that win competitions are targeted are targeted by trust boxes.
Speaker 1 00:17:56 Sometimes they're preempted. Sometimes they're prevented from merging with other companies and becoming bigger, not because they violated anyone else's rights, but they, because they happened to have earned a more customer, uh, that is clearly on equal treatment. Now, Iran and others, Jaelyn, Greenspan have shown that it's also arbitrary treatment. But I would say that flows from the idea that it's on equal treatment it's on equal and therefore anything goes really. And therefore it becomes capricious. So the, the other type of citizens, so to speak in that setting is the, is the con the loser, the lagger, the competitor who doesn't win the competition, uh, but gets this favorable treatment from antitrust. Sometimes they get gifts of patents transferred over from the winners to the losers, uh, in finance, too big to fail, too big to fail. People learned what that was in 2008, 2009. The policy had actually been in place since 1984, but that's an obvious one to single out certain banks as big and therefore worthy of taxpayer bailout.
Speaker 1 00:19:05 When there's a financial price. Now there's all sorts of arguments for this. They don't want contagion effects. They don't want bank runs of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the point is, notice the treatment, the treatment is if you're a bad bank, making bad loans, you can do it. If you're big and we won't do anything to you, we don't put you in bankruptcy or anything. We might even protect you from closing. We'll give you tax payer money, but if you run your bank in a conservative, proper manner and never become insolvent, or you might have to pay taxes to fund these bailouts, that is clearly on equal treatment. And it couldn't be clearer to say the big ones get treated one way, the little ones get treated a different way more recently in the COVID lockdown policy. We all remember essential companies and non essential companies, essential workers, and non essential workers now to the worker and the proprietor.
Speaker 1 00:20:00 They'd say this job is very essential to me. I realized the central planners may not think so, but this income is essential to me. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. This business, I started as very essential to me, but that's very realistic. A dualist approach to classify those who essential, therefore, uh, you know why they wouldn't be locked down or wouldn't be so restricted versus non-essential and they would be restricted. And they would be extra taxes that is just outlandishly a violation of equality before the law I'll just tick off others without analyzing to deeply affirmative action to single out certain people in quotas and say they get in the front of the line clearly on equal treatment. I would say the minimum wage laws, where they mandate minimum floor below which wage rates can knock go bifurcates. The labor market into those would be employers and would be employees who fall above or below the line, a clear bifurcation and on equal treatment.
Speaker 1 00:21:02 I would say in the enforcement, not just the laws, but enforcement of the laws, there can be unequal, procedural enforcement. The most recent case I would say last couple of years would be well, if you're a trucker in Canada and you want to oppose the lockdowns and drive to Ottawa, you really have no rights. Uh, but if you're BLM and a diva and you want to run rampage through the cities of America and burning and looting and torching, not only will you not be arrested, if you're temporarily detained, uh, your plaids, no cash bail at why. So in certain groups are favored. Certain groups are privileged. It's the same activity you could argue. If you want to argue that looting and pillaging is the same thing as driving a truck and disrupting traffic in Ottawa. It really isn't. But notice the differential radically different, um, treatment of how you conduct yourself in protest in public.
Speaker 1 00:22:03 Um, last one I would make, well, there are obvious ones like slavery, but everyone knows that it's unequal treatment based on their skin color or the idea of women can't vote and men can vote. That's obviously there's differences between civil and commercial speech long ago, the Supreme court said political speech is protected. That's left free, can't be censored, but we know they gave up on that in terms of commercial, or they can tell commercial advertisers, they can regulate them very specifically. So there's another breach of the equality of treatment principle, uh, in the remaining five minutes I've given to myself. I just want to, um, do a couple things quote from the current vice president, uh, Harris and Biden himself. The first week they took office. I don't know if anyone recalls this had press conferences, stressing that everything the administration did would have as its guiding principle equity.
Speaker 1 00:23:04 This third category, this third, very deadly category that runs at odds with equality before the law and not just equity. And the fact that the idea of equal results think of this. This comes up in somewhat of a technical term, disparate results or disparate outcomes. The argument is if you just look out at the world and see disparate outcome is this theory, ipso, facto evidence of unjust on equal treatment. So for example, if you look out, this is how they think of it. If you look out in the world and you say 50% of the population is women, but only few kind of women, uh, occupied CEO job would be CDO. Market is biased. And because of its inequality, in other words, it doesn't conform in this crude way to the actual, uh, population percentage of fill in the blank. Now sometimes LTS, uh, colleagues or students and say, well, does that mean the NBA is racist because 90% of the players are black, but only 12% of the country as black course, they would not say that.
Speaker 1 00:24:21 But then we would have to say, well, no, to begin with, because they're more capable, it's more, they're more skillful. And I said, yes, exactly. So why are you looking at race? Why aren't we looking at merit? Why aren't we looking at talent? But this, this look for this because this idea of disparate impact or different disparate attempt, they, they, they, they like to jump to the idea that since I can find an unequal outcome, it must have been due to unequal law or on equal policy. That's just not true, but be aware of that. Now this is in summer of 2020 in a famous tweet, Kamala Harris. Now this was before the election, just before the election, she tweeted the following. It's not that long, but listen to this. She says, there's a, this is a tweet. There's a big, then it went viral.
Speaker 1 00:25:12 This is a big difference between equality and equity. So she said, so if we're all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you're still going to be that far back behind me. It's this kind of a child, his formulation, I'm just reading it. It's about giving people the resources and the support. They need notice that giving so that everyone can be on an equal footing and then compete on an equal footing. He goes on equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place. Wow. So that's our formulation. Here's more equality suggests, oh, everyone should get the same amount. The problem with that is not, everybody's starting out from the same place. So here's a, here's a way to kind of parse this. Um, what is meant by a quality to her.
Speaker 1 00:26:10 Everyone should get the same amount, meaning outcome. What's the problem. According to her, not everybody starts out from the same place. So what then is equity everyone starting from the same place and equitable treatment is we all end up at the same place. Now think of this. One way of thinking of this would be, would be to say that that, well, first of all, this is egalitarianism kind of like synopsized, but it requires two things which are very odd. It requires that everyone begins and, and at the same place with the same amount, I mean, there could not be a more inhuman account of how humans should spend their lives. Uh, so be equal at the beginning, right? That's the idea everyone's supposed to start at home plate. You need that. That's the ideal. We need policy to change that as much as possible. And then even as the game begins, we need the ninth ending the end and the complete tie.
Speaker 1 00:27:09 And presumably at every ending, it's tied all the way. This to those of you in economics will sound very much like the pure perfect competition model, which is anti-competitive. Last thing I want to suggest is, uh, suppose I'm right about this, that the equality before the law principle, the only legitimate one, really to the extent being eroded by these other two pseudo concept. So equality is happening. Think of what this means for the culture we see all over the world that seems to be characterized as cronyism. What is cronyism or, or the privileged getting their way interesting in Latin privilege means private law. That means law, you know, unique to some person or a group, not general law. So, so privileged, technically is a bad thing legally because it's carving out special favors for special groups or persons. But notice you would get that if you have a system that's, that's trying to assault and take apart equality before the law, the focus and the push would be on differential treatment, discriminatory treatment, favorable treatment, the whole redistributive welfare state, not just in terms of taxing and spending, but in regulating and licensing and zoning and all the other things.
Speaker 1 00:28:34 And again, not all commercial, a lot of these things there's lobbying going on for differential treatment on social issues is really a result of moving away from equality before the law. So it is not a feature of capitalism. I mean, we all know that we'll argue that the mixed economy invites, lobbying, invites people trying to influence the outcome. But the only reason they do is they know there's a unequal treatment. They know the stakes are great that since the lady justice is not blind in this system, in this corrupt system, uh, she can be bribed, uh, or that the government officials looked at from the different direction will be extorting, certain favors and certain campaign contributions. And what do they have to dangle in front of people? Differential treatment, because if they just said to everyone, sorry, we have this law and it's treating everybody the same. No one would give a damn about lobbying a politician. There would be no favors to Curry, no favors to pay for. So I'll stop there. My summary point, I think, would be, there are four very distinct, I think, interesting conceptions of equality, but they're not just additive. The subsequent ones are eroding the foundational one, which is equality before the law.
Speaker 0 00:29:56 Thank you, Richard. And, um, just want to acknowledge a few people who are in the room up on stage with me. Um, Scott, who's, my co-host here at the Atlas society for these clubhouse chats, our founder, David Kelly, or senior scholar, Jason Hill. Roger. Uh, if you didn't catch his, um, conversation with Richard last night, uh, please check it out. Hopefully it's on replay. And, um, I would like to ask all of you a favor, if you could take a moment, go down to the bottom of your screen, hit the share button and share it either on clubhouse or on Twitter or Facebook. That would be awesome. Uh, so let's, um, get to the questions and, uh, Jason. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:30:48 Yeah. Thanks, Richard. This is very interesting. Um, I, I wrote a very substantial piece on equality of opportunity and that I think is really the, you know, the, he called the of outcome is the logical concomitant of equality of opportunity. So, so th the comment I wanted to make is, you know, what being a philosopher, of course, I'm going to ask the question, what is an opportunity? Because I think equality of opportunity is probably the most nefarious of all the so-called qualities, because it gives rise to equality of, of equity. So what is an opportunity and an opportunity rate is a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something and achieve a goal. So equality of opportunity, I think rests, I'm trying to equalize initial chances of success, but how can you do that without trespassing on the rights of others? So the mother who reads to her children, although she's tired after working three jobs, um, a day, um, and fosters and genders, uh, capacity for reading and her two daughters become executive publishers and become very successful is going to be, uh, there.
Speaker 2 00:32:01 Those, the outcome is going to be very different from mother who thinks that reading to her children is just a waste of time, are our NBA black players who dominate basketball to be penalized because they have more opportunities for playing the sport than Asian men. So it seems to me that opportunities arise as human beings are free to pursue their values and exercise efforts on behalf of their lives and values result from attributes that persons possess that as I in ran says, can't be redistricted redistributed. So it seems to me what the advocates of equality of opportunity want to do is to deprive persons, the result of the consequences of their actions and the attempt to redistribute the products of a person's values. Indiscriminately is a form of a preparation that is impossible and irrational. Um, because very often I think that, um, these, these, these belief in opportunity is magical thinking because it's advocates proport to master the existence of now and here phenomena that actually haven't come into existence. Yet we bring these things into existence based on our values. And that's what makes it really, really problematic. I think so, but, but I really appreciate your comments on, on the, on the, on the, on that particular vector. Thanks.
Speaker 1 00:33:30 Thank you, Jason. I agree with you that every time I've, uh, it sounds like like you, when you examine equality of opportunity and really push it down, it, it starts leading to we're bleeding into the equality of results approach and, and adding onto some of what you said. I think other ways of looking at this as well, the first thing I've noticed is people are not going to be against opportunity. And, and certain societies are known for having more opportunities in America. For example, more vibrant entrepreneurial freer countries generally have more opportunities, call it more choices, more avenues of, you know, how you live your life. Not, not just that early choices of their lives. Sometimes you can reverse things later. That's not true in many cultures, you know, change careers, change jobs, things like that, change interests, things like that. So I think one of the appeals of the equality of opportunity approach, one of the reasons people will, will, uh, embrace that, but maybe not equality of result, which sounds cloning and almost scientists on the science fiction in dystopian way is opportunity has a good connotation.
Speaker 1 00:34:40 It's the equality of opportunity. That's the problem. Uh, as, as I suggested, and I won't repeat, I think it's also funny if you remember that line about what is I forget who coined this, but it's very clever. Uh, someone would say, well, your success in life, you were just lucky and I'm unlucky. And someone wants to find lock as what preparation meets opportunity. You have to be prepared to grasp an opportunity. You know, when, uh, there's a knock on the door, you know, make sure you're there to answer it type of thing, but also the idea of are you active or passive in your attitude toward opportunity? If you look at it passively as opportunities or things given to me, and I just haven't been given enough opportunities, woe is me, you know, versus the person who says I'm going to make opportunities for myself.
Speaker 1 00:35:34 Well now what would that mean? I'm going to improve. I'm going to explore, I'm going to be intellectually curious. I'm going to be out and about in the world. I'd venture to say, even David Kelly's point about being benevolent versus being malevolent, the benevolent person on every level is looking for values. I mad he might be disappointed. He might find bad people and bad, um, detours and back alleys. But the point is he's, he's expecting the best in others and, and other conditions and circumstances. That person is likely to find more opportunities. Uh, but, but he's like a mind is like a gold mine, reason mining for them. He's actively mining for them. And lo and behold, look, he finds more of them and he turns out to be a success. So I think that also moved beyond this idea of the active versus passive. Um, it can be helpful. Thanks. Uh, thanks, Jason.
Speaker 0 00:36:33 All right. Um, and I just want to let people know, I pinned to the top here, a link to Richard's monthly seminar that he holds for students. So if you are a, a college student or a recent graduate young professional, um, please come in and join us on that. Uh, we also make it available for you just want to come in and audit. You can do that. Um, but just do so with your camera off as really, uh, in a, an environment that we're cultivating for young people. So, um, yes, Scott's or David, did you want to jump in?
Speaker 4 00:37:14 Uh, I would like to just make a point, um, going back to what Richard had said about the equality of law. I mean, I agree with everything you've said. However, I think there's a certain danger in sidestepping. The justice of a wall is you mentioned in connection with slavery because in a formal technical sense, a lot of people who advocate, um, or defend government programs that embody, um, equality of opportunity, quality of result goals. So we can still formulate the laws, um, in a, in a way that anyone who makes a certain condition, um, uh, gets this kind of treatment, even take the progressive income tax, every, anyone who, um, makes X amount of money pays a Y percent of that to the government. It doesn't matter if X and Y are the same, the lawmaker distinctions of all different kinds between guilty and innocent, et cetera. So I think you have to tie it for the, for your conclusions to follow. It seems to me, you have to tie equality of the law to a concept of a law as based on individual rights. And that defines the proper scope of flaw. And it sets in which we are equal as equal rights holders. Um, and it's those rights that are then violated by the other forms of equality.
Speaker 1 00:38:45 Yes, I like that, David, and I think that's maybe what I was groping toward when I said, oh, by the way, you can't just have you can't just say, oh, follow the rule of law. Uh, you know, and assume everyone knows it's going to be a good law. Okay. That's a whole huge, good, good, long just law. Meaning what, uh, to protect the individual rights are not, you know, that's not Jim Crow. I agree that, but maybe what maybe would you agree with this? David is the erosion. I think you'd agree. There is an erosion of equality before the law. Is it due to the kind of things I'm talking about or is it in part due to what you're talking about? Namely now it's eroding because people don't have a objective conception of what the law is that it strictly is anything that conforms to and protects individual rights, the concept of individual rights, in other words, being eroded. So will equality before the law, is that where you're going?
Speaker 4 00:39:44 Um, in a way, yes. I mean, the factors you mentioned are, are totally valid, I think, but I'm just saying that when people, when laws like the laws are created, the regulatory state and the welfare state, we're motivated by in the case of welfare. Anyway, I think by big dose of altruism, we don't hate, we hate seeing people suffer. Uh, and we don't understand why the war in a rich country. So, um, we pass this law and then it has to, you know, be applied equally. That is anyone who qualifies in using quote unquote entitlement programs is entitled to that treatment by the state. So I think the, um, I think there's the, the underlying arguments and, and values, um, in that, um, drive people through an opportunity and, uh, results, uh, equalities are, um, are, are manifold. Um, I mentioned altruism. Uh, I just want to mention quickly one of the things that there's a, a line of argument in political philosophy. I, I, you know, I know you're aware of this from the opportunity to resolve on the grounds that we didn't deserve our native, uh, capacities, And we didn't deserve, uh, the parental credence we got. So, um, roles are used that, well, then that's, you know, we're just going to redistribute those benefits that we have, that leads to a level of quality. Um, so, and that's based on a determinist view of human nature. Um, very largely. So that's another underlying factor, but the result is exactly what you described.
Speaker 1 00:41:33 Yeah. And I've also an awful, also on that Roseann principle. I've never heard an answer to my retort that, and it really, he really does count on saying nobody deserves anything. He's not just saying, you know, in some cases, and if you're above a certain income, the whole idea of you didn't choose your birth status means everybody didn't choose their birth status. So nobody deserves anything, but the problem is good, then they don't deserve a handout. They don't, why would they deserve a redistribution of wealth? You know? So in other words, it dessert is out the window. It has to be out the window all the way, the dessert, well, not to be used upon, you can have your cake and eat it too in dessert theory, But he wants that. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:42:20 All right.
Speaker 1 00:42:21 Thank you, David.
Speaker 0 00:42:22 Uh, I also wanted to recognize we have the chairman of, or of the Atlas society in the room. So, uh, we're quite grateful to him. We wouldn't be here without him. Um, and, uh, I'd love to go next to Roger. Uh, if you are not following Roger, you probably are because everybody's following Roger. Uh, and you should join his healthy debates. Um, they are spectacular. He's, uh, he's a master, so I try to join all of them because I'm, I'm learning from him in the way that he, um, hurts everyone and brings out the best in everyone. So, uh, Roger,
Speaker 5 00:43:04 Oh my God. Thanks for the nice words. I don't think I deserve that, but it was a fun room last night and it's funny, Richard, and I didn't even agree on his talk, but, uh, even when we disagree, uh, being able to have that dialogue is really, really important. And I, and I think that anyone that didn't listen to Richard's talk last night, you could see the replay either in my profile or the healthy debates club. You can go check that out. So do that. Um, but Richard, I, this is the way I think of opportunity. Um, I, I think of it in with the analogy of playing poker, um, what poker players need is they need to know that the game, the rules of the game are fair for every player and that the rules don't change just because you're not good at the game, or because you have some immutable characteristics, the rules are set and people can choose to play.
Speaker 5 00:44:01 And then they, and they sit at the table and, and they, and they, they play within that same framework that applies equally to everybody. That would be the equivalent of, uh, equality, uh, under the law. And then we're where it gets sloppy is when people start introducing this idea of equality of opportunity. And for, for some people, they might think that, oh, well, that's, they, they fall into these, uh, uh, traps where they'll, they'll watch a video where they, I don't know if you guys saw the one where they, they show that if you, these characteristics, you start here in the line. And if you, you know, and if you've got this privilege or that privilege, that then you're, you're so much further ahead. Well, here's, here's the, the problem with that is how do you plan on remediating that? And so when I think of it in the poker analogy, it would be to say that anyone that steps to the table with an immutable characteristic that you deem, uh, you know, is disadvantaged, would get more chips to start out with.
Speaker 5 00:44:56 So the women are going to get more chips to start out with, if you're a person of color, you're going to get more chips to start out with. And we're just going to distribute chips at the start of the game. Uh, like let's say, let's say, uh, somebody shows up late to the game and there's a chip leader, then it would be quote unquote unfair. And so in order to provide an equal opportunity, we're going to level that new person up to the same chip level, that the person that's worked their butt off to get all those chips, we're going to make sure that they're now equally with the amount of chips. And then here's the worst part. When you move into equality, equality of outcomes at the end of the game, you're going to then say, well, everybody gets their money back and everyone's going to get a fair distribution, an even distribution, not a fair distribution, a fair distribution would be to give it to the person that won the game.
Speaker 5 00:45:48 But, but the thing that people don't think about is it, as long as we focus on making sure that the rules are fair for everyone, and that everyone knows what those rules are, we need to provide equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes. Everyone can buy in with the same chip stack. Everyone can cash out based on their ability to play the game. And, and, and the reason why some people tend to lean this direction is because they haven't taken the time to learn how to play the game. And I would just say, you know, it advice for anyone, whatever that game might be, whether we're talking about the laws that govern society, whether we're talking about playing that poker again, learn what the rules are, and then learn how to play the game well within those rules, and then teach the people that you love, what the rules of the game are and how to play that game. That's the way that people get better at the game of poker. That's the way people perform better in life. That's it?
Speaker 0 00:46:50 Richard? What do you make of that, um, analogy? And you just have to unmute yourself. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:46:57 Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Roger. My reaction. Thank you for those comments. That's clarifying. I interpret what you said as splitting opportunity into procedural and substantive. When you say rules of the game, know the rules of the game, fair rules of the game. To me, those are the procedural aspect of opportunity. And I think it shades into equality before the law. The substantive part though, would be the person who says, listen, I know the rules of the game, say of a baseball. I know them inside out. And I'm a fan. I'm a fanatical about them. I know them better than maybe the players, but I'm never going to be the star pitcher for the red Sox. I don't have an opportunity. See what they would say. So I, so procedurally, I get it. I've studied, but I don't have the opportunity. Why? Because I'm not a good baseball player.
Speaker 1 00:47:48 And, and literally the serious ones on the substantive side. Think that's a problem. Think that policies should be doing something about that. By the way, I can think of two policies which have been absolutely disastrous that put this into effect. And Roger alluded to this. There are all sorts of studies that look backwards and say, why are people successful? And one of them might be, they went to college or they own a home. And those are two policies where, what did the government do? Uh, the government said, good. Let's subsidize people go into college. Let's uh, and then now there's so much student debt. Now now free tuition, or what did Clinton and Bush do prior to the 2008 crisis? Uh, everyone should own a home after all studies show that home ownership leads to, you know, more wealth than if you're renting. And so let's have a policy of artificially promoting home ownership to people who can't afford homes.
Speaker 1 00:48:41 I mean, these are two policies that have been absolutely disastrous, but they're driven by this opportunity, equality of opportunity approach. I could name dozens of others, but those are just two examples. And I'm just talking about the economic impracticality of those two, let alone the injustice of it. But then the main problem is the injustice of it. But they also lead to, you know, gargantuan policy mistakes that wreck whole economies and, and sometimes people's whole futures. So with these, with these debts, I, it's not quite on the point, Roger, but I wanted to throw out to people that you might notice. And students notice this. When I teach them this, I asked them at the end of the day, which kind of ideology or politics would go with the equality before the law. They almost invariably say libertarians. And when I asked them what kind of politics they think goes with equality of results, they almost invariably say without me prompting them socialism.
Speaker 1 00:49:36 And then when I asked them about equality of opportunity, which seems to be a halfway house between the two, um, they're not quite sure, but as some of them will say, what I think is true, which is conservatives conservatives are very inclined to say, because they don't want to strictly say equality before the law. That sounds too heartless to them, but they're not socialists either. So the conservatives will, you'll find will be very comfortable with saying, I want equality of opportunity. I'm just asking for equality of opportunity. I think George Bush actually had a tagline. This is the opportunity society in his case. He wanted everyone to own a home.
Speaker 0 00:50:16 All right. Um, I am, uh, going to speaking of richer students. Um, again, I have a link up I'm going to be removing it shortly. It is a student seminar. So if you are a student or recent graduate or you have, um, son or a daughter or a nephew that might enjoy, uh, Richard's seminar on, um, the intersection between morality and markets, uh, please share that link with them. Uh, I'm going to be putting up next, the link to Richard's, uh, most recent book. So, um, so get it now, JP,
Speaker 6 00:50:57 I was just going to share, um, a takeaway that I got from today's session from, uh, Richard when he read the tweet. Um, and I, and I really hadn't reflected before. I'm not a native English speaker, so I don't, I felt, I thought when they, when the, when the Biden administration was talking, uh, equity, I, I just figured he was woke ish of some sort. But when I, I, when, when you, you put it in, in, in when, when you explained it that under articulated that way, I understood that it went beyond opportunity of, of, um, of outcome and it goes, but I, but then I, I just, I, the, the parallel just jumped into my consciousness of, of basically just good old Marxist to all according to, uh, need and from all according to, to, to ability. Uh, so, so it's, it's, it's just paying on a reboot of, of marches, math, Marxist theory, or doctrine.
Speaker 1 00:52:08 Well, that's a really good question because that the socialists distributed principle, and it was specifically that the common pot in the socialist community would be filled from each according to his ability, the producers, and other words, but it would be distributed out according to people's needs, meaning it severs the connection between effort, uh, and reward between productivity and the wage you get. And the capitalist principle of, uh, income is quite opposite. It's the idea that you get paid in the market, what you contribute to production. So that's called the marginal productivity theory of wages, and it's a more just system. There's a correspondence between what you produce and what you get paid by the employer. And there is a certain equality there, JP, right, that the equality is between what you produce and what you get paid. But of course, different, uh, employees in the company will be a varying productivity.
Speaker 1 00:53:14 The Marxist principles, uh, tries to say, everyone's going to get paid the same regardless of what they produce. And of course I, Rand Randon in her book and elsewhere, the critique of is it's impossible, it's unjust. And it ruins the company. The 20th century motor company adopts that principal specifically. And now in the implication, of course, is if this has done the economy, why the whole economy will collapse, people start inflating their needs to get paid more and diminishing or hiding their abilities. Well, that, that is the essence of what the Soviet union was in any socialist regime. So the concept, if I were to apply the concepts of equality I'm talking about, there is an equality in the, um, Marxist sense of be quality of result. And Noah notice it's ruinous. And, but there is also an inequality of a kind in the capitalist distribution principle, but it's between, um, effort and reward.
Speaker 0 00:54:14 Thank you. Thank
Speaker 6 00:54:15 You.
Speaker 1 00:54:16 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:54:19 JP, did that answer it for you?
Speaker 6 00:54:21 Yes, absolutely. It is. It, it validates con validates everything that I had. I had, um, I had previously inferred. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's right on, right on.
Speaker 0 00:54:37 All right. Um, and, um, we'll see if we can get to two more questions. I'm not sure we, we will. So Alex, I'm going to bring you up here, but apologies in advance if we're not able to cover it. Uh, we've got so many clubhouse sessions planned here at the Atlas society. If you don't get your question answered today. Uh, I'm sure we can cover it in a future session. Clark.
Speaker 7 00:55:03 Yeah. So Richard, thank you so much for your excellent presentation. Um, my question is, uh, can equality under the laws survive critical race theory? And, uh, let me just give a little bit of context for that. Um, I mean, I consider someone like bill gates to be a woke person, uh, at some level bill gates, excepts Obama's align, you know, you didn't build that. I mean, at some level, even bill gates, you know, this brilliant entrepreneur that worked his butt off for many years to build his company, thinks that, you know, he's a white guy who got lucky. And, and so, so th I guess what I'm, what I'm getting at is for bill gates. If you just asked him, Hey, you know, do you believe in equality under the law? And he would say, yes, of course I do. But I think his moral goals is to write historical wrongs, you know, to level the racial playing field and that trumps, you know, his, his basic view of equality under the law. So he doesn't mind if lady justice blindfold is removed, uh, if he gets his overriding goal. And that of course is, you know, again, to level the racial playing field. So, so, I mean, can, can these concepts, which we all hold dear equality under the law, can that, you know, survive this, this incredibly strong, uh, CRT and I mean, critical theory in general,
Speaker 0 00:56:34 Richard, sorry. I'm committed you there. Cause we got the background noise.
Speaker 1 00:56:38 Yeah, my answer. Thank you, Clark. It's a good question. My answer is no, there, there, it cannot survive. CRTV extend CRT is strong reminding people CRRT. Isn't simply saying the quality of the law would be nice, but it didn't really been practiced by this country. They need to reform seeing our tea specifically says that the institutional, these are the words they use. Structural systemic genetic structure of the entire legal system is wrong, is racist as sexist as patriarchal. So there's no reformist aspect of this, the whole system because it's systematically corrupted has to be thrown out. And of course it evolves mostly from the Marxist argument. So instead of the idea that the capitalist labor relationship is destructive and needs to be thrown out here, the idea is the entire legal system has to be overthrown for a fill in the blank, but no, their view would be any rich, powerful in this case, they mashed or white, as long as they're the rich and the powerful they will, they will manipulate and twist the legal system into ways that benefit them and them only that. So you could say that they're yearning for equality for the law and against privilege and cronyism, but they don't think it's achievable again from this idea that it's structurally not flawed or be too nice, a word structurally corrupt and disgusting and, and worth overthrowing. Good does. That's a good question. Clark CRT, which is absolutely against equality before the law even being possible as an ideal goal.
Speaker 0 00:58:19 All right. And as predicted we have one out of time, I, the link up there to the upcoming clubhouse events and other, um, webinar interviews and our book club, et cetera. If you go to the events section right there at the link, uh, you will be able to pick and choose, or even better just go to our website and, um, click on the, get signups, get updates, um, and you will get emailed to you, uh, notices of our various, um, upcoming events. So thanks everyone. And, uh, I will look forward to seeing you, I think we're going to be back Tuesday, so we'll see you then.
Speaker 1 00:59:05 Thank you all. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you everyone.
