No equality in opportunity

By synthesising old Tory and traditional left ideas a genuinely egalitarian society can be achieved



Why inadequate? Primarily, because it will not benefit most people. By definition, the winners in life are few, the losers several, and the middle the majority. Those who fail to win in the socioeconomic race still make a crucial contribution in doing mundane but necessary jobs. They, as much as the winners, deserve a fulfilling life in accordance with their capacities. But the ­rhetoric of egalitarian opportunity means that ­everyone who doesn't succeed is defined as a failure. Such contempt ­reinforces and repeats inequality.



Paradoxically, what we need is a new synthesis of the traditional left's emphasis on addressing economic inequity and the old right's concern with justified inequality. In terms of the former, it is impossible to provide equal opportunities for children without improving the existing outcomes of the lives of their parents. We need a new political economy that will distribute resources more evenly and give working people greater assets and confidence, thereby ensuring a better start for their children.

The modern left scarcely addresses this need. Instead, by vaguely implying that all inequality is bad, it remains impotent in the face of a persistent inequality that is both merited and unmerited. But common sense tells us that inherited inequality is in part the result of economic injustice and in part the result of disparities of intelligence, skill and application. Currently the left tends to admit the latter truth for future practice, but to deny it in their theoretical account of the past.

It can escape this contradiction by embracing the "old Tory" view that privilege is not just reward for success, but also a way of providing the appropriate resources for the wielding of power linked to virtue. By virtue we mean here a combination of talent, fitness for a specific social role, and a moral exercise of that role for the benefit of wider society.

If we could conceptualise justifiable inequality, the results would ironically be more egalitarian than a vague and hypocritical hostility to any inequality whatsoever. Why so? First, because many current inequalities would turn out to be unjustifiable and so a proper politics for their removal would emerge. Second, because the more we seek to link social and economic prestige with virtue, then the more we can hope for good financial and political leaders ­possessed of compassion and integrity.

The politics of equality of opportunity has licensed ever greater inequality; we need instead a more radical ­economic egalitarianism coupled with the ­recognition of a difference of roles and a hierarchy of excellence.