INSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY

What leads to what: liberty to equality or equality to liberty? Perhaps, despite the claims of some, there is no developmental relationship between the two. We do believe in both and at times these societal qualities work at cross purposes. They are not mutually exclusive; you can design a society with both – we claim to have done so. But a lot of our political discourse can be boiled down to whether or not we will advance the one for the other. Should we have better schools, for example, to advance equality? If we go about trying to improve our schools, we soon find ourselves spending more money on them and that generally means soliciting more taxes from our citizens. Collecting those taxes can be seen as limiting taxpayer liberty – they have less money to do what they want to do. Right wing thought argues that liberty leads to equality. By allowing people to make their own decisions about the economic opportunities they find in front of them, enough will decide to invest money and time to start businesses and make innovations that will expand economic activity and provide others with jobs. Expanding economies enhance equality because they create meaningful opportunities. These, in turn, allow many to seek the American dream.

On the surface, all this true. But in a more basic way, I believe the more meaningful relation between the two is one in which equality leads to liberty. But before we can really determine what's primary, of course, each of these terms need to be defined within the context in which they are being considered. Liberty seems to be the more easily defined: the state in which a person can basically do what he/she wants to do. Historically, there have been many different views of liberty and freedom, but for the purposes here I am using this more popular sense of liberty. Equality has a more illusive meaning. Does it mean a state in which everyone has the same goods and access to the same services? Does it mean equal condition; that is, equal standing before the law? Does it mean equal opportunity? Or does it mean we all enjoy equal standing in terms of fame, reputation, privileges, or some other desired quality? Most Americans, I think, believe that equality refers to equal condition, at minimum, and, for many, it also includes equal opportunity. Let's go with those two attributes.

Now, if we begin with a condition in which neither liberty nor equality exists, what needs to be established first in order to end up with both? This condition is not that hard to imagine since most of human history has resembled this state of affairs: no or very limited liberty and no or limited equality. Most societies have been situational arrangements in which either a strong military type runs the government for his own interests (I don't know of any such system with a woman in charge) or one in which an aristocratic or plutocratic class runs things for its own interests. There have been some cases where a bureaucracy was in charge. In any of these cases, though, liberty cannot just break out and become the mode of political interaction. Liberty needs the appropriate institutions to be set up so as to establish the necessary laws and constitutional structures that create the appropriate social and legal and cultural expectations which allow for people to act as they wish. And how does that happen? On some level, enough people or at least leaders need to have a view of their fellows as being entitled to rights on an equal basis – they believe that these non elites should be able to define and act in ways that advance their lives as they see fit. And that is equality at a foundational level.

Of course, as the necessary processes proceed and those institutions are established over time things get more complicated and formal. I was watching this past Thursday on TV the dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library and museum. There, for the occasion, were all the living past and present presidents. They all had nice things to say about President Bush. Was this important? To a degree, it was. Why? Because it displayed how a support institution – like the ones I alluded to above – gets established. The event helped further entrench our system of government and governance. And at its heart, it is a ceremony that treats all past presidents equally, whether he served one or two terms or whether he is held in high or not so high esteem. A sense of equality prevailed among these past and present leaders and the ceremony further legitimizes the presidency – an essential center of power within our system. Was the event enough by itself to overcome those forces that undermine the levels of legitimacy from which our system suffers – those forces of extreme partisanship that have stymied our government from meeting many of our nation's needs? Of course not, but the development of these institutions is slow going and it takes many such events to be developed and updated. It is an ongoing process.