Equality of Outcomes destroys Freedom

Equality of Outcomes destroys Freedom.

“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.”

—Milton and Rose Friedman, in
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

Facebook’s design for the constraints it wants to place on freedom of expression, by means of its “community standards,” makes it impossible to accuse Facebook and the people who run and own it of failing “to promote their own interests” and to “destroy freedom.”

In the conservative moral universe, it is essentially true that, “In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king.”  If he rules wisely, he will be a blessing to his subjects. If he does not, he will be a tyrant, an exploiter of his people.

In the radical liberal universe (of which communism is a prime example), figuratively, a one-eyed man will have his remaining eye put out, to make him equal, thereby to ensure that his ability to see is not an unfair advantage to him, whereby everyone will be forced to suffer equally, being unable to enjoy any of the advantages his ability to see can and will provide for all.

In the conservative universe, all who deviate (by nature or by choice) from the norms of the majority are free to enjoy life as well as they can, as long as they ask not for special privileges from anyone else, regardless of any distinguishing features (e. g.: sex, race, or colour) that they may possess, exhibit, or claim to have.

In the radical-liberal universe, the diktats of political correctness demand that everyone has the right to demand special considerations that are to be granted by law to anyone who is bestowed with or who chooses distinguishing features (e. g.: sex, race, or colour) that he may possess, exhibit, or claim to have.  That is because of the duty for everyone else to grant those rights, as that is what equality of outcomes means.  In case that is confusing, simple: If someone needs a wheel chair, then everyone gets one of those, and if someone is hired preferentially, then everyone else will automatically be given a job that poses equal demands on his time, skills and experiences, etc., whether he has any of those or not, and he will still be given the same wages or salary, regardless of his performance.

In reality, of course, there will be a more practical outcome.  Not everyone will get a wheelchair, only those who need it will receive one (which is not necessarily true of preferential hiring practices that often cause someone not fit for a given job to be hired, so as to meet affirmative action hiring quotas, whereas those best qualified for the job won’t get it and go on the dole).  However, because being different, on account of which one may be experiencing or claim to be suffering disadvantages, a good number of people in a liberal regime will claim to be handicapped or discriminated against.  Victim status is a much sought-after state of existence.  It often provides intensively sought benefits that are being provided to claimants for extended periods, perhaps many years, at times for life.

Facebook’s “community standards” are obviously a creation of radical-liberal employees or contractors paid by Facebook.  They are the unavoidable cause of an enormous amount of confusion that will end in chaos and ultimately result in harming civilization.  It is only questionable how far into that direction things will go.  Somewhere along the line, people (individuals, groups, or masses of them) will put on the brakes, assess how far the deliberate deconstruction of society went, and work on getting enough support from others to be able to salvage what can be salvaged, to restore order and to begin the process of reconstruction.

Some may find it difficult to understand why that should be so. Maybe the example of the Stockholm Syndrome will explain it.  In the aftermath of the 1973 Stockholm hostage-taking the hostages refused to testify against their captors.  Variations of the Stockholm Syndrome apply in many instances, when offenders claim that someone (usually a man), perhaps even the devil or their inner demons, made them do what they did.  More often than not, the self-acclaimed victim (women more often than men) will be able to gain considerations of extenuating circumstances, on account of which they will then be able to plea-bargain the charges against them down to a lesser offence, receive a reduced sentence or are perhaps even pardoned.

The Stockholm Syndrome is an example of an important difference between conservatism vs liberalism, equality of opportunities vs equality of outcomes, of the difference between being conservative while remaining absolutely objective vs drifting into the obsession with subjectivity – the inexorable transition into the Never-Never Land of ultimate radical-liberalism with its enormous number of identities and the tyranny of identity politics that has, for instance, Sweden in a tightening strangle hold.

Sweden is arguably the leader of the progressive pack of nations, but other nations are in hot pursuit and not that far behind in the race to achieve the hoped-for blissful oblivion of the radical-liberal Utopia (a.k.a. the idealized version of a Marxist regime).

The next article in this series discusses Identity politics clash with reality.

Back to index for this article series

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See also:

• Freedom and Equality vs Rules and Power
• Socialism begets Slavery
• Breaking with liberalism
• Remembrance Day 2008
• Propaganda, socialism and feminism