This article was first published by BizNews on 15 September 2024
There are two kinds of equality at war with each other: you can have equality of rights, or equality of results, but you can’t have both.
Nobel Prize winning economist FA Hayek wrote, “It is just not true that human beings are born equal; … if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual positions; … [thus] the only way to place them in equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are, therefore, not only different but in conflict with each other.”
Equality of rights is a regime of individual liberty while equality of results requires regimentation and the eradication of liberty. People enjoying equal freedom use freedom differently and the results are inevitably unequal.
Imagine giving 20 people R50,000 each on Monday: chances are they will have unequal wealth by Tuesday. One recipient may rush out to play the slots at their local casino while another buys food for his family. Another beneficiary may invest the money in shares or use it to open a small shop. Some will see their assets depleted rapidly while others will see them increase.
The choices they make will change their results.
If the goal is equal results the actions of beneficiaries will have to be restricted. The inevitable fact is for equal results to flourish, human freedom must be restricted. It doesn’t matter how “altruistic” are the motives of the social engineers, the achievement of their goal requires the use of authoritarian means. What is really tragic is in the end not even the goals are accomplished. The result of this process is a crude equality at the lowest levels and for this human freedom was sacrificed.
One way property owners can improve their economic lot is to lease their property to others. The home owner may lease or purchase a smaller property for themself and rent out their original property for a profit. They are still housed and have a small income to improve their standard of living. This happens all the time, unless the home they own was given them by government and their choices are restricted.
A news release from the Western Cape government says, “The law is clear that every South African citizen who receives a government housing subsidy when buying or receiving a property, will be subject to a pre-emptive condition in their Title Deed, meaning the individual cannot sell the property within the prescribed 8-years of receiving the subsidized house, unless it has received permission from the Provincial Department of Human Settlements to do so.”
Of course, other homeowners are free to sell their property without asking for special permission. Imagine two homeowners offered a job that would vastly improve their lives, but they would have to move in order to take it. The first simply can lease his house and move to take advantage of the opportunity. But the second has to jump through regulatory hoops and satisfy bureaucrats that they have a legitimate reason for leasing or selling their property.
The regulations that come with subsidised housing restricts the economic mobility of the recipient: less mobility means lower income. The goal was to lift up the recipients but in the process they lost important freedoms necessary to improve their lives. Restrictions are politically necessary but are often too easily roadblocks, not highways, to economic well-being.
Advocates of equality of results have a problem in that free people, even those they wish to help, often make choices not reflecting the values of the bureaucrats who are engineering the programs. The only real solution to this problem is to strip the beneficiaries of their rights to make choices. So, to foster the goal of greater economic equality they have to restrict the freedom of those they seek to help.
Too often these programs are far too complicated and politicians take the easy way out and that is to do less “lifting up” and more “tearing down.” Equality of results may be achieved by confiscating wealth. Of course, in the process a new economic elite is created — state agents with power, politicians and those special interests they favour.
Authoritarian regimes found equality by destroying wealth. While it is very difficult to raise the bottom up, it is relatively easy to tear the top down. Mao did it in China and Pol Pot did it in Cambodia. This is why Hitler targeted the Jews and why Mugabe targeted white commercial farmers and black professionals in Zimbabwe.
The inevitable fact is for equality of results to flourish, human freedom must be restricted. It doesn’t matter how “altruistic” the motives of the social engineers, the achievement of their goal requires the use of authoritarian means.
