Equality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a political concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used in some political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity. It describes a state in which all people have approximately the same material wealth and income, or in which the general economic conditions of everyone's lives are alike.
Achieving equal results generally entails reducing or eliminating material inequalities between individuals or households in society and usually involves a transfer of income or wealth from wealthier to poorer individuals, or adopting other measures to promote equality of condition.
One account in The Journal of Political Philosophy suggested that the term meant "equalising where people end up rather than where or how they begin", but described this sense of the term as "simplistic" since it failed to identify what was supposed to be made equal.Phillips, A. (2004). Defending equality of outcome, Journal of Political Philosophy, 12/1, 2004, pp. 1–19, Defending Equality of Outcome, Accessed July 12, 2013
In politics Political philosophy
According to professor of politics Ed Rooksby, the concept of equality of outcome is an important one in disputes between different political positions, since equality has overall been seen as positive and an important concept that is "deeply embedded in the fabric of modern politics". Conflict between so-called haves and have-nots has happened throughout human civilization and was a focus of philosophers such as Aristotle in his treatise Politics. In political philosophy, there are differing views on whether equal outcomes are beneficial or not. One view is that there is a moral basis for equality of outcome, but that the means of achieving such an outcome can be malevolent.
Writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, analyst George Packer argued that "inequality undermines democracy" in the United States partially because it "hardens society into a class system, imprisoning people in the circumstances of their birth". Packer elaborated that inequality "corrodes trust among fellow citizens" and compared it to an "odorless gas which pervades every corner" of the nation.
In his 1987 book The Passion for Equality, analyst Kenneth Cauthen suggested that there were moral underpinnings for having equal outcomes because there is a common good—which people both contribute to and receive benefits from—and therefore should be enjoyed in common. Cauthen argued that this was a fundamental basis for both equality of opportunity as well as equality of outcome.
One view is that mechanisms to achieve equal outcomes—to take a society and with unequal socioeconomic levels and force it to equal outcomes—are fraught with moral as well as practical problems since they often involve political coercion to compel the transfer.
According to one report in Britain, outcomes matter because unequal outcomes in terms of personal wealth had a strong impact on average life expectancy, such that wealthier people tended to live seven years longer than poorer people and that egalitarian nations tended to have fewer problems with societal issues such as mental illness, violence, teenage pregnancy and other social problems. Authors of the book The Spirit Level contended that "more equal societies almost always do better" on other measures and as a result striving for equal outcomes can have overall beneficial effects for everybody.
In his A Theory of Justice (1971), philosopher John Rawls developed a "second principle of justice" that economic and social inequalities can only be justified if they benefit the most disadvantaged members of society. Rawls further claims that all economically and socially privileged positions must be open to all people equally. Rawls argues that the inequality between a doctor's salary and a grocery clerk's is only acceptable if this is the only way to encourage the training of sufficient numbers of doctors, preventing an unacceptable decline in the availability of medical care (which would therefore disadvantage everyone).
Writing in The New York Times, economist Paul Krugman agreed with Rawls' position in which both equality of opportunity and equality of outcome were linked and suggested that "we should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn't know in advance who we'd be". Krugman favored a society in which hard-working and talented people can get rewarded for their efforts, but in which there was a "social safety net" created by taxes to help the less fortunate. Many have suggested that a society promoting equality of opportunity will resultantly see a higher degree of equality in the outcome and that equalizing a person's socioeconomic starting conditions will result in a meritocratic distribution of economic influence. Such is the basis for left-leaning market-based ideologies such as distributism, ordoliberalism, the Social market economy, and some forms of social democracy.
In The Guardian, commentator Julian Glover writes that equality challenges both left-leaning and right-leaning positions and suggests that the task of left-leaning advocates is to "understand the impossibility and undesirability of equality" while the task for right-leaning advocates was to "realise that a divided and hierarchical society cannot—in the best sense of that word—be fair".
Conservatives and classical liberals criticize attempts to try to fight poverty by redistributive methods as ineffective, arguing that more serious cultural and behavioral problems lock poor people into poverty. Sometimes right-leaning positions have been criticized by left-leaning positions for oversimplifying what is meant by the term equality of outcome and for construing outcomes strictly to mean precisely equal amounts for everybody. In The Guardian, commentator Ed Rooksby criticized the right's tendency to oversimplify and suggested that serious left-leaning advocates would not construe equality to mean "absolute equality of everything". Rooksby wrote that Marx favored the position described in the phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" and argued that this did not imply strict equality of things, but that it meant that people required "different things in different proportions in order to flourish".
American libertarians and advocates of economic liberalism such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman tend to see equality of outcome negatively and argue that any effort to cause equal outcomes would necessarily and unfortunately involve coercion by government. Friedman wrote that striving for equality of outcome leaves most people "without equality and without opportunity".
According to philosopher Anne Phillips, it is simplistic to define equality in strict outcomes since questions such as what is being equalized as well as huge differences in preferences and tastes and needs is considerable, therefore they ask: exactly what is being equalized? Author Mark Penn wrote that "the fundamental principle of centrism in the 1990s was that people would neither be left to fend for themselves nor guaranteed equality of outcome—they would be given the tools they needed to achieve the American dream if they worked hard". On the topic of fairness, Glover writes that fairness "compels no action", comparing it to an "atmospheric ideal, an invisible gas, a miasma" and using an expression by Winston Churchill, a "happy thought".
Bernard Shaw was one of the few socialist theorists to advocate complete economic equality of outcome right at the beginning of World War One. The vast majority of socialists view an ideal economy as one where remuneration is at least somewhat proportional to the degree of effort and personal sacrifice expended by individuals in the productive process. This latter concept was expressed by Karl Marx's famous maxim: "To each according to his contribution".
Substantive equality
The substantive equality embraced by Court of Justice of the European Union focuses on equality of outcomes for group characteristics and group outcomes.De Vos, M. (2020). The European Court of Justice and the march towards substantive equality in European Union anti-discrimination law. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 20(1), 62–87.
Conflation with Marxism, socialism and communism The German economist and philosopher Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels are sometimes mistakenly characterized as egalitarians, and the economic systems of socialism and communism are sometimes misconstrued as being based on equality of outcome. In reality, both Marx and Engels regarded the concept of equality as a political concept and value, suited to promoting bourgeois interests, focusing their analysis on more concrete issues such as the laws of motion of capitalism and exploitation based on economic and materialist logic. Marx renounced theorizing on moral concepts and refrained from advocating principles of justice. Marx's views on equality were informed by his analysis of the development of the productive forces in society.Rejecting Egalitarianism, by Nielsen, Kai. 1987. Political Theory, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Aug. 1987), pp. 411–423.
Socialism is based on a principle of distribution whereby individuals receive compensation proportional to the amount of energy and labor they contribute to production ("To each according to his contribution"), which by definition precludes equal outcomes in income distribution. In Marxist theory, communism is based on a principle whereby access to goods and services is based on free and open access (often referred to as distribution based on one's needs); Marx stressed free access to the articles of consumption. Hence the "equality" in a communist society is not about total equality or equality of outcome, but about equal and free access to the articles of consumption. Marx argued that free access to consumption would enable individuals to overcome alienation. In Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx also took into account how some were more capable than others (such as in height, marital status, skills, etc.), furthering his point against absolute equality.