Is government contrary to the concept of egalitarianism?

[RUSTY SHACKLEFORD]

While it may be a fine thing to believe that a government should evolve only as necessary to promote equality for its citizenry, historically this has never been the case. It may be nice to believe that governments should provide cradle-to-grave eudemonia for its people, but that is fantasy. There has never been a government, no matter how good the intentions of its founders, that didn’t engage in class-ism in some form. In the vast majority of governments, this is rampant and flagrant.

It is my belief that government is contrary to the concept of egalitarianism. Government is not intended to provide welfare for its people, nor engender their happiness. Those things can only be found through the actions of the individual.

If one accepts this to be the nature of government, then the question regarding the political spectrum is once again reduced to one of “more” or “less” government, and which is better.



Background References:

My recent soul-searching: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2034946

I got myself into this interesting discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2034946#2041334

Thanks.

[ulysses]

1. no.

(not to put too fine a point on it.)

[porphyrian]

2. Not if the govt. is a referee rather than a ruler.

The problem is that a governing system always attracts the greedy and the power-hungry, so assholes keep trying to take control and change it into a corrupt form of population control rather than what it's sold as, whether that is an egalitarian communism or a democratic republic. If the government were to really serve the people rather than force the people to serve it, we could approach equality for all citizens. Until then, government remains the tool by which the greedy and the power-hungry use the people for their own ends.

[leftyandproud]

12. if government "serves the people"..

how can it achieve egalitarianism without exerting force on the people? Preventing them from acting in ways that allows them to save more money than others?

[leftyandproud]

3. Yes

because to enforce economic equality, you must necessarily have political INEQUALITY (inequality under the law) with special favors going to certain groups of people, and special punishments going to other groups of people. In the end, the only way people can improve their lot in life is to gain favor with politicians, or gain political power themselves and vote themselves a higher standard of living...rather than competing and earning it through trade with others on the market.

[ulysses]

4. how so?

to enforce economic equality, you must necessarily have political INEQUALITY

[leftyandproud]

9. like I said..

granting special privileges (entitlements) to some groups at direct cost to others, necessarily means you are treated differently under the law. I don't have a problem with this...I'm just stating it as fact. There is a big difference between having an even playing field, and enforcing an even result. At a football stadium...players compete on even ground. Some will lose...some will win. Some will score the touchdowns, and others will get injured and knocked out of the field. By adjusting the game...arbitrarily moving certain players back and forth across the field...giving your preferred 'team' (the underdogs) political preference so they can make otherwise impossible moves and end up scoring the same number of points as the winning team...This type of intervention may achieve a "just" result in your eyes...The score may be tied and everyone may be more equal than they would have otherwise been, but you certainly can't claim that the game was FAIR...It wasn't based on equality of rules...equality under the law. You necessarily remove this type of equality when you try to enforce equality of outcome.

[RUSTY SHACKLEFORD]

10. I concur.

This is exactly why I do not believe one should not base his or her political ideology upon the nebulous concept of egalitarianism. The ends do not justify the means. Egalitarianism and government make about as much sense as Christian fundamentalism and government, or Apartheid and government. It's just your garden variety authoritarianism under a different name.

The question should reduce to one of "more or less" government.

[OKNancy]

5. Maybe back in the "olden days"

This would be true: It is my belief that government is contrary to the concept of egalitarianism. Government is not intended to provide welfare for its people, nor engender their happiness. Those things can only be found through the actions of the individual.

In a small society and a primitive society maybe that would be the case, but the US in particular is much too big and diverse and spread out to rely on the individual. Individual effort is great as long as everyone is on the same footing both physically and intellectually. There are just some people who need help and there is not one first world county that doesn't realize that.....of course it could be argued that the USA is way down on the list.

The group is always stronger than the individual. Can you name one successful society that thrived under the libertarian ideal?

[rman]

6. Government is intended to provide welfare for the people,

or at least was originally intended to do so.
After all, the government is the people's idea to begin with ("of-, by- and for the people", "governance by consent of the governed"), and why wouldn't the people want to provide welfare (well-being) for themselves?

As i see it, the problem is that centralized authority tends to get out of control because it is so easy for authority to abuse the natural tendency of the people to 'submit' to authority and not to question it to much, especially when that authority starts to behave authoritarian.

I think the natural tendency of people to 'follow the leader' is what makes large scale organisation of people's activities possible. Also natural is the tendency to follow the leader more as the situation gets more urgent (war etc), if only because emergency causes fear amongst the people, which in turn reduces the rationality of people. This while rationality is required to recognize abuse of power and stand up against it.

[GreenArrow]

7. no,

but capitalism is.

[rman]

8. democracy to defend minority rights against majority rule

(re: your example of two men voting to rape one woman)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2034946#2041334

I'd say the (or an important) fundament of democracy is equality, which implies equal rights - in this case, the right not to be harmed by others.
This equality would be democratically agreed upon before hand, and then it's just a matter of not making up the rules as you go, but rather sticking to basic principals. Of course all that is moot once people have lost their morality.

hence the neocon ideology:
"Those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior." - Leo Strauss (teacher of Wolfowitz amongs others)

[MAlibdem]

11. I thoroughly disagree with your premise

My feeling is that through government, citizens are able to pool resources to achieve progress and provide services that would otherwise not exist without government. Through elected representatives, these resources are directed and implemented into programs.

While this may limit economic freedom (especially the "freedom" of some to exploit others), in no way does it limit personal freedom. In fact, it is clear that the left wing of the United States political spectrum is far more open to providing personal freedoms.

It is more the freedom from obtaining certain needs than the limit of economic freedom.