Liberty vs. Equality

Which One Do We Pursue?

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Right now in the US, during this tumultuous post-election year, there is a real existential debate that has risen the forefront of identity politics – What are we working towards?

We saw the surge of support for candidate Bernie Sanders for more socialist-leaning policies such as free education and universal healthcare that has experienced relative success in other countries. We witnessed an equal and conflicting momentum of individual rights on the conservative front, frustrated by the negligence of suffering individuals for the preference of suffering groups of people. Identity-politics are at an all-time high and the terms “privilege,” “equality,” and “oppression” are flung around on a daily basis as a new weapon of the left. We've reached the peak of an ideological warfare where each of us have to choose where we fit on the political spectrum and hold on for dear life.

And for me, observing all of this from a point of view that was historically progressive, I'm trying to make sense of it all. Since growing up and attending schools in the most diverse areas of the country, of course I have always been in support of equality. Even when Asian Americans were disproportionately and negatively affected by Affirmative Action policies, I tried to persuade myself that these measures were for the future and greater good. “Of course student bodies should proportionally affect ethnic ratios.” Even when feminist groups touted unequality statistics that didn't really make sense to me, I kept my head (relatively) down and conceded that “maybe I simply don't understand since I didn't experience life in the same shoes.” Since my time in college, when liberalism was at its height during the inauguration of former President Barack Obama, I've seen the democratic party lean deeper into the campaign of “equality” with the rising LGBT and feminism movements. During this time, I was mostly complicit and assumed that I was in this domain as well.

But a lot has changed since then and I've been rethinking my assumptions of politics, identity, and where I stand in opinion concerning the future of the US. I've been closely following what has been happening with this administration, with the liberal-leaning media, with the rise of social groups including SJWs and Antifa, and the overall cultural climate in which we live today. And I do firmly believe that we are at a critical intersection of whether we pursue Liberty or Equality.

• Source: Mises Institute

Not a Zero-Sum Game but Almost

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To clarify for the this post, liberty is the state of being free from oppressions and able to pursue what you want as long as that does not in turn oppress another. Equality is just that- the state of being equal in regards to certain conditions and qualities. The two terms are not completely distinct and do overlap in a number of ways, but it is the way they have manifested in recent political discussion and actual society that really distinguishes them.

Liberty resonates even in cliches – 'The best man/woman for the job' and 'the early bird gets the worm', clearly narrating any individual is able to success with enough elbow grease and grit. Liberty means eliminating racial and ethnic barriers, diminishing gender roles/stereotypes, and providing equal baseline opportunity to everyone. Put simply, no opportunity is barred as long as you are willing to open and walk through those doors.

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These are the innate, inalienable rights of all Americans.

Now we have “equality.” Equality, much more so than liberty, can be measured and controlled at many more stages and access points during that pursuit of happineess. Liberty connotes an equality in access to opportunity but nothing else. In today's socail discourse, the concept of equality umbrellas much more than that access – it demands equality in socioeconomic foundation, equality in interpersonal treatment, and equality in outcome amongst many others.

Equality suffers from one crippling inherent contradiction as opposed to liberty's straightforwardness of being “free.” Equality for some means inequality for others. Equality requires enforcement at some level and that entails someone or some group maintaining some kind of balance. Even the most neutral-sounding attempts at 'equality' will at least at some moments prevent an individual's full liberty.

I'll bring up and briefly outline two very common scenarios to illustrate the internal struggles.

First, we have the issue of racial proportionality in academic and professional settings in relation to population distribution. If America has X% of black and X% latino/South American residents, schools should have an equal proportion. This is at the core of Affirmative Action, America's purposefully discriminatory tool (I don't mean that 100% sarcastically) aimed to support diversity. That main metric of equality put forward is that an institutional percentage must reflect the population's percentage.

The debate around affirmative action has existed since its inception decades ago. Supporting racial proportionality may seem like a simple and worthy strategy but it does impede on what others may deem as fair acceptance. For example, it constructs a hierarchy where racial diversity is more important than experiential diversity. Academic performance and potential are minimized in preference for race as well. This ends up harming other subsets of society for over-performing beyond their racial proportion. As you can imagine, everything becomes a tug-o-war of interpretations concerning equality.

Second, we the issue of the median of full-time women's pay being equal to the median of full-time men's pay, particularly in the UK and America. As former president Barack Obama once famously stated, “Women make 77 cents on the dollar.” That statement looks purely at the (lack of) equality in outcome and does not take into account the striking variables of professional choice, work patterns, family-oriented decisions, and so many more that constitute the difference. One of the greatest deciding factors is that men are overwhelmingly more likely to take on dangerous careers – military, construction, public service, transportation, etc. - and sacrifice personal lives for their careers, creating a huge rift between full-time pay gaps.

As a result, any attempted enforcement at creating equality of outcome would undoubtedly curtail the liberty of those not on the receiving end. Candidates would be dismissed based on their sex due to smaller quotas and overall stigmas would be created against the dominant group. Equality is always subjective and requires so much effort to concurrently sustain universal liberty.

• Source: TED

There is a Difference

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With either domain, we have to ask innumerable questions to make sure liberty is actually liberty and equality is actually equality. In many ways, liberty is somewhat easier to determine as it does not have to weigh the personal and sub-communal factors of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, lifestyle, and culture. It is freedom from a baseline. When we integrate some idea of “equality” and try to engineer a means to reach that artificial balance, we must be much more vigilant in understanding why and for whom this equality actually benefits.

To clarify, I'm not dismissing that actions and dispositions of racism, sexism, bigotry, superiority, ableism, etc. create situational barriers in living a liberated life. This is probably a topic worthy of several if not dozens of other posts. The aim of this post is to start understanding that liberty and equality are not coupled and nor should they be.

So what do you think? Are there moments you've seen where liberty comes at a cost of equality and vice versa? As always, let's get this conversation in the comments below.