Natural Inequality

Overview

Inequality is a natural result of who you're born to, what genes they “stuck“ you with, whether they fed you sugar water or green smoothies, whether they discussed ideas or the neighbors, and now – when you're on your own,  whether you're willing to work hard and wait for your dream car, or work the disability system and wait for your monthly check (unless of course you really ARE disabled).  Life will never ever be “fair”.  We can't all be an Einstein, Steve Jobs, Mozart, Kobe Bryant, Angela Merkel or Jay-Z. 

Will and Ariel Durant, in their life-long study of history concluded, “Inequality is not only natural and inborn; it grows with the complexity of civilization.  Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual ….”

Tyranny

“History shows that from time immemorial superior men took advantage of their superiority by seizing power and subjugating the masses of inferior men.” (Ludwig von Mises) Natural inequality has been the cause of the world’s slavery and oppression, but it has also been the source of all our progress and prosperity.  Natural inequality can lead to prosperity or tyranny depending upon the traditions and laws of the civilization in which it is exercised. The key is to have an environment that channels natural inequality into prosperity and prevents tyranny. 

Without the restraint of law or morals to protect the weak and minorities, an inequality of ability always leads to tyranny since the strongest, in their greed for power, overrule the weakest.  Throughout history, from the ancient Romans and Mongols to modern Stalinist Russia and Maoist China, differences in ability have allowed ruthless kings and dictators to amass too much power and oppress their own people, resulting in great poverty and even greater inequality.  In the 20^th century this has resulted in the mass murder of over 240 million people by their own governments, frequently in the name of “equality” and the “greater good”.

The lesson of history is that coercive power must be checked and controlled if it is not to become the tool of those with the greatest skill and desire for power. 

Today, most use of force has been monopolized by government (and to a lesser extent defacto “states” like powerful drug cartels or terrorist organizations).  Though people worry about “shooters” and crime,  the real power over our lives is in the pens of bureaucrats who can fine and imprison us (for any of mryiad regulations we can't even know about), and their back-up government enforcers with assault rifles and body armor. 

In a world controlled by government power, those with exceptional ability and low morals seek the power in politics than they can’t get in an honest business.  Government favors and special protections become the goal, and lining the pockets of politicians the key to those favors. 

Becoming a politician can be an easy, “low-risk” road to riches as evidenced by the unnaturally mushroomed personal fortunes of many in the political class.  As Sheldon Richman said in his essay For Equality; Against Privilege, “Historically, government's primary function has been to exploit the industrious...for the sake of the political class, which prefers collecting subsidies to earning wages or profits.”

In the modern state, business men who seek monopoly power or unfair advantage must go to those with political power to get special favors in the form of protective laws and regulations, loan guarantees and grants, bailouts, tax breaks, tariff protection, favorable administrative rulings, etc. through a process called rent seeking.  All of this mutual pocket-lining creates upward wealth transfer by defrauding the “powerless” (most of us) to benefit politicians and their business “friends”. This is how a lot of the unfair income inequality happens. (23).

But in free societies where use of force by individuals and use of government power for personal ends is prohibited, the exceptionally able must turn to the free cooperative market and use their talents in productive pursuits.  Those who want to make money have to produce something people actually want instead of playing the system. 

Those who work smarter and harder, sometimes end up with a lot more wealth. “Working harder” can mean taking scary risks and eating peanut butter instead of steak to build a business, and then having it fail – over and over, until you finally succeed. That's why it's called “HARD” work – and also why a lot of people never do it. But those who stick it out (sometimes helped by circumstance or genes – and sometimes in spite those things), who are also willing to save, invest, and take risks to create successful businesses that produce goods and jobs, can end up a lot richer than the rest of us, creating great, but fair income inequality.  But they also bear full responsibility for their failures, and may end up with nothing.  Is that fair?  That all depends on how you define fair.

Although natural inequality may seem unfair, it has been the source of all man’s progress.   Properly channeled by the environment in which it is exercised, it creates the innovation that improves everyone's life.  We all benefit from the intelligence and hard work of the “few at the top” who have gotten there honestly, in innumerable ways.  If you have a smart phone, you have benefited from the exceptional ability of Steve Jobs who almost went bankrupt in 1998.  If you have a car, you benefited from Henry Ford’s tenacity in starting over after the failure of his first venture in 1901, the Detroit Automobile Company.  His “intense commitment to systematically lowering costs” turned cars from a luxury into a necessity. 

But no matter where you start in life, you are free to choose how you approach the future.  You can claim victimhood and expect others to do for you, or you can look at your talents and do what you can do best to help others.  And if you are good at digging ditches, you can trade your efforts to others who aren’t and benefit from what they are good at in the free market of human cooperation.  And those with superior ability can choose to be generous and help others with the natural gifts they have received by voluntarily working in civil society to help others.

Political leaders and demagogues want you to believe that material inequality is unfair and that wealth should be redistributed (except for their wealth).  Taken to its extreme, this philosophy led to the murder of everyone with a business or an education in Communist Russia, China, Vietnam, etc. because of their class not their crimes. 

But what would it be like if everyone was equal?  Imagine a world without those of superior ability...a world without Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Kobi Bryant, etc., without the discoverers and creators antibiotics, of polio and small pox vaccines, or heart and marrow transplants.  It would be a world without entertainers, and even more crucially without  the innovators and businessmen who produce all our abundance and the jobs that support the wealthiest population of workers in the history of the world. 

Those at the core of the private business/research world who have gotten there honestly should be celebrated even more than celebrities rock stars and athletes, because they not only make life enjoyable but possible for billions of people.  Without them there would be no safety, energy, technology, or health to enjoy everything else.

Man’s individual humanity and his freedom to express it are what separate him from the animals, and have enabled us to specialize and create greater abundance. 

Lesson

Inequality is the essence of freedom.  “If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, interchangeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not?  Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died?” Murray Rothbard

Natural inequality (differences in ability) can produce a heaven or hell on earth; tyranny and poverty, or freedom and prosperity.  What it produces depends upon the environment in which it is exercised.   It cannot be eliminated.  If it were, men would cease to be men.  Man is more than an animal driven by instinct.  At best, men are thinking, caring, creative beings who thrive on challenge and opportunity and protect the vulnerable.  At worst, they are sadistic monsters.

Although man’s diversity is what makes progress possible and life worth living, if access to coercive power is not limited, the most ruthless and opportunistic will rise to the top, seize the power of the state, and enforce their will upon the rest of society, frequently under the guise of promoting fairness and equality at gun point as evidenced by current abuses of government power. 

But with appropriate control of the use of force by rule of law, and universally protective moral and legal traditions and institutions, including eliminating manipulation of government power by businesses and special interest groups, diversity in an environment of individual freedom and responsibility can unleash the human potential of natural inequality and create an engine of prosperity that increases the wealth of society and improves the lives of all people.  But as it increases the total wealth of the world, those who make the pie much bigger pie will benefit more than those who eat the pie, creating a good and just form of material inequality. 

Everyone, from the poorest to the richest, should celebrate properly expressed natural inequality, including the material inequality it creates, because of the improvement it makes in everyone’s quality of life.

Inequality  a gateway to inequality, what is it, why it exists and why it matters?

Freedom and Equality  the quest for freedom and equality lead in opposite directions

The Ideal of Equality  a fork in the road, legal equality or material equality, with two different