If your primary concern is fair distribution, something that I’ve observed women are particularly concerned with (and that has become a greater and greater political concern as women have gained political power; no doubt an anthropologist or evolutionary biologist would trace this concern back to some primordial feminine role of distributing the assembled goods of hunting and gathering at the communal hearth), then such questions are fairly easy to resolve. It’s fairly clear when status isn’t being distributed equally. It’s not hard to see that there’s a problem. Status, or value, of people/things/structures/identities/behaviors is not being equitably assigned.

So how do you correct that? That’s the practical question. By force, by education, by training, by intervention? All of these have been and are being considered and implemented. But do those attempts actually work and do they effectively produce the expected results and justify their cost? Can you redistribute status effectively? And what are the side effects? Can you level out status, bring up the status of some, without in some way bringing down the status of others to the same level?

This has been a challenging question in economics, and it holds just as much weight in the economics of social and moral status as it does in the world of money. And you cannot avoid such questions, if you truly care about the outcomes. It is insufficient merely to overserve that inequality exists. That fact is blindly obvious to everyone and explains the majority of human behavior. We constantly evaluate the unique properties of a situation, as well as the unique properties of ourselves and the unique results we wish to produce, and we tailor our actions accordingly.

If either humans or the enviroment or the results of action were equal by nature, then we wouldn’t bother with any of that cognitive or physical effort. Human intelligence would be fundamentally unnecessary, and even instinct would need little more than the most basic of algorithms to keep the system going.

So as humans, if we observe that status is not distributed equally, and we wish it to be more equal, then we must answer difficult questions beyond the mere fact of inequality. We must consider how to successfully adjust those outcomes. Especially, we must solve the perennial conundrum of how to achieve equality without being merely reductive. After all, the easiest way to achieve any kind of even surface is simply to scape it down to a level, to pick a floor and reduce all aberrations to its level.

Economically, nothing has been such an effective leveler as catastrophic destruction and death. If you want a surefire way to make sure everyone is at the same level, there’s nothing like removing the results of all achievement and storing up by hitting everyone with a catastrophic plague or war or environmental disaster. But I’m not sure most people would actually prefer that as a strategy, effective as it is.

Forced redistribution is another possibility. Take whatever unequal status anyone has above some level and give it to someone else whose status is suboptimal. Continually knock down those riding high and continually reallocate their excess to those riding low. And, I assume, hope that doing so does not fundamentally harm their means of producing status but rather corrects such problems. That by giving someone excess status they will naturally become more capable of producing such status, and that by taking status from someone they will become more naturally capable of maintaining the status they have been reduced to. Whether this hoped for outcome will actually occur is a very relevant practical and historical question.

There are, of course, many types of status, many types of value. Social status, economic status, professional, legal, relational, sexual, political, biological (health), physical (capability), and psychological status. And it troubles us how unequal people seem to be in these areas, how much variance there is. It troubles us partly that inequities exist, and partly that we are seemingly aware of them and make judgements and distinctions based on them and make adjustments to our behavior based on them. This upsets us. Are not all men and women created equal?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by “equal.” If you think that by equal we mean “the same,” and that differences and distinctions are illusory, then that’s a pretty big theoretical assumption in any field and leaves a lot to be explained about human behavior and history (and even biology). There would have to be some mighty big conspiracies going on manipulating the beliefs and outcomes of every dimension of life in every place humans have ever existed to make that kind of result possible, if the true underlying reality was completely the contrary. And it’s not clear, even then, if the conspiracies exist, why they should exist or why they should be successful in subverting the results if there exists no real fundamental differences to produce them or support their efforts. How do you scheme inequality out of means that are fundamentally incapable of such results?

If there exist no true distinctions between categories and definitions, if all exclusion based in definitional differencea is illusory, then why should putting up illusory divisions between categories produce differing results? Especially, why should these false divisions succeed in creating non-equivalence not just here, but in so many other places at so many times simultaneously, and so consistently, if the divisions are fundamentally illusory? How is it so easy to bend and distort the fundamental nature of the universe? How much extreme effort must be required to acheive and maintain such a crazy result, and what makes us think that inequality is achievable at all if nothing in the actual structure of the universe or humanity supports it?

One might ask of various fields, is there anything in economics or in biology or in physics (or psychology or politics, if you want to get into the softer sciences) to suggest that all differences in categories are purely illusory or purely socially constructed (whatever that means; made actual despite not being actual)? Is there anything in these fields to seriously support the contention that all outcomes of different inputs (different people, different systems, different structures, different actions, different materials, different behaviors, different assumptions) should turn out the same, equitably? Or should we expect differences to naturally emerge, regardless of manipulation?

One question that remains fundamentally unaddressed in all of this is thia rather an important one: What produces status? Are there already-existing, non-arbitrary means by which status is assigned and evaluated by humans? And to what degree can they be co-opted or overwritten or revised or ignored by those concerned with unequal distribution? If you stop taking the existence of status, or value, for granted, as something merely to be equitably distributed, and ask yourself, “What it is that produces it, what makes it possible?” you’ve got a whole new dimension of problems to address. The question isn’t merely, “Why doesn’t X have as much value as Y?” but “Why do X or Y have any value at all?”

This question is, I think, a far more interesting one. It’s of practical value to question how to divide a meal among a family. It’s a problem that needs solving. But it’s of far more fundamental importance to question how they got that meal in the first place, and even more practical to answer that question. If your essential problem is that people don’t have enough food, then the first question is useful for managing the solution, but far less useful for actually solving it. And attempts to solve the problem merely through management and distribution while ignoring production may actually serve to make the problem worse.

For example, if the adults in a family are undernourished and sick and unable to do the work necessary to find and provide more food, more equitable distribution won’t cure the poverty that is overtaking them. It is not especially useful to distribute goods equitably if they are not distributed according to where they are needed or merited to support further production of those goods. In a company, if I decided that I needed to spend the same amount on maintaining my facility as I do on producing my products, and allocated budgets for the departments accordingly, that would be equality. I wouldn’t be assigning different values to their contributions or accomplishments or allocating different amount of resources as a response. Everyone would have equal value.

Is that what we need? Would that work? What would likely happen to the company upon which all members depend for their pay as a result of such justice? Let’s take that question a bit further and look within a category. What if I decided that everyone in a given department deserved to be given equal pay, regardless of their roles and how much or how little responsibility or time the job required and regardless of how much education the position required. Would that fundementally work toward the natural health and function of the department and the people in it and increase and sustain the production upon which their salaries depend?

Let’s take it just one step further. What if I decided to pay people in a department equitably, the same, regardless of experience or performance? Would that naturally work toward supporting the health and function and productivity of the department and the people in it? Because if equity theory is right about difference between inputs, between categories, being illusory, then the answer should be yes.

Aligning the social system with the underlying egalitarian reality should produce the desired result, or at least not affect it negatively. If differences in categories and inputs is illusory, then disregarding them and structuring the system equally should result in equal outcomes; it should improve those outcomes, because no effort is being wasted or lost on supporting an artificial system of distinctions. It should be more efficient and more productive. If equity theory is correct, then this must be the inevitable and logical outcome, and it should be easier and more efficient to produce than its artificially-imposed opposite. So the question is, is this how the universe works?

Nope, it’s absolute horse$#!t. This is not being nice, it is not fair or kind or helpful. It is a denial and subversion the very basis of human productivity and survival, the entire point of intelligence and action. All people, all societies, all beliefs, all behaviors, all places, all systems, all actions, and all structures are not the same. They may all have value. But they are not all the same. They differ. Especially ones with real purpose. The more purpose they have, the more they are differentiated and specific, the more they can differ. Dissolution of difference in utility, in outcomes, can only be achieved by dissolving the purpose itself. Making your goal more vague and nebulous in order to extend the value of all contributions to it does not actually help you advance your goal. It merely dissolves the means by which you measure progress toward it.

If humans hadn’t figured out long, long ago there there are differences between things, between being here or there, between doing this or that, between behaving this way or that way, they would never have survived. If there were no differences, we wouldn’t exist, much less have achieved all we’ve achieved. Why have we outcompeted so many other species if there are no differences between us? How do you account for all the differences in your own life, as a result of your beliefs, capabilities, actions, and choices, much less all the differences in outcomes across history? Do you want to believe in a deterministic universe where nothing makes any difference and we’re all the same and no matter what you do it all ends up the same, where your choices and the individuality of your character make no difference? Is it reasonable to believe that we live in such a universe?

How do you account for differences in outcomes of people isolated and separated from one another by great gulfs of time and space (as was the case for a large amount of humanity across time)? How was the conspiracy maintained then? How were the outcomes constantly and consistently manipulated to fit the conspiratorial goals absent the presence of the conspiratorial hegemony? Isn’t it somewhat more reasonable to assume that the fundamental nature of the universe is inequality and difference and distinction, not equality and sameness and indistinctness? If this fundamental inequality is in fact the underlying nature of the universe, are we served or harmed by living in denial of it? Are we served or harmed by living in acceptance of it?

If human life, and its goods and its outcomes and even its existence, depend upon awareness of differences and the ability to recognize and categorize them, to be “aware of them and make judgements and distinctions based on them and make adjustments to our behavior based on them”, then what is our postmodern philosophy of equality actually trying to achieve? Is it not fundamentally in opposition to reality? Is it not fundamentally anti-human and dysfunctional?

As lovely as it all sounds, as tolerant and kind and optimistic as it may seem to try to extend access to all status and all value and all goods to all comers, how is such a philosophy that has fundamentally no understanding of how goods are produced but simply wants to reassign them, how is that supposed to actually produce paradise?

I think a better idea question would be, could you choose a more thoughtlessly compassionate and naive and counterproductive and childish outlook? There is a sweetness to children, who assume that everything just shows up and is available and costs nothing because their parents simply give it to them. They don’t have to pay the price to purchase those goods, or develop the capacity to produce them. They don’t understand where they come from; they just ask for them and get them.

And children often wonder, why shouldn’t I have that? Why can’t I have that? What stops me, other than me asking and you refusing? You could give it. So stop being a tyrannical and cruel parent. Stop abusing your children, stop excluding them, stop withholding from them. Be generous and your children will love you. Your family will grow. You will increase happiness, increase flourishing, increase provision. Because the goods, the value, the status, is simply there for the asking. It wasn’t produced by any special process or understanding. It wasn’t the result of some distinct and complex purpose and knowledge and behavior tailored to produce it.

None of this means that distribution doesn’t matter, or that we shouldn’t be concerned about it. Because injustice can take place at the level of distribution, as well as at the level of production. And it is the worst mistake for either side in the debate to assume that the only thing that exists is justice or injustice at their level. Injustice of distribution does occur and does matter, and there is painfulness even in the inequality of the distribution capacity for production, and neither are as easy to fix as they might seem (and trying to manipulate one often ends up messing up the other).

One could advance the theory that, well, it doesn’t matter that the nature of life and even the universe itself is unequal. It doesn’t matter. matter. It’s still wrong. Who are you going to take that argument up with? God, the universe, humanity itself? To some degree at least, we are constrained in our outcomes by the nature of things that we cannot and did not determine. And that’s hard for people to swallow. And if we are determined to correct for an injustice of that nature, is it easier or better or more effective to try to correct the universe for our feelings or our feelings for the universe? Should we prepare the road for ourselves or ourselves for the road?

The answer given today almost always seems to be that we can’t demand change from humans, perhaps because we believe them to be fixed and deterministic and fundamentally identical at heart and differences in outcomes to be the result of artificial manipulation, and so the answer to fixing it is more artificial manipulation, or manipulation that reverses the perceived distortion. So if we can’t ask anything of people, if we can’t allow them to be right or wrong or better or worse, then what lengths might we need to go to to fix the world? And how likely are we to succeed?

In fact, there are many cases in which manipulation of the world is called for. We do it all the time. Because accidents do happen. We make mistakes, too. And we try to insulate ourselves from those sorts of random effects and arbitrary injustices. But our current problem is more deeply rooted in our habit of assigning all differences in outcomes to the category of “arbitrary and unnecessary.” Perhaps we’ve achieved such a freedom from the limitations and consequences of reality through our technology that we’ve truly come believe we are gods, that we can take for granted that we can have and should have whatever we want, that the world can be changed to fit us, rather than us needing to bow to the harsh demands of the world.

By this point we should have some idea of what a pathological conception of equality and justice is. What should a proper conception of equality and justice be, then? It cannot be sameness. It cannot be founded in a rejection of all categories, differences, consequences, discernment, and judgements. Can an excessive focus on those differences and ignorance of all the problems related to distribution also result in a pathological ideology? Can a people become too obsessed with the idea of everyone getting (or having already got) their just desserts?

Of course they can, obviously. What is karma, in its bleakest conception, except a blanket philosophy that asserts that everyone gets what they deserve, and so everyone deserves what they got? This might actually be a more functional philosophy, if somewhat merciless and inflexible, than pure egalitarianism, because it at least is a decent reflection of the somewhat merciless world we live in and preserves the concepts that connect knowledge and action to outcomes (that keep complex animals alive). But that doesn’t make it right, or complete, or healthy, any more than pathological equalitarianism is right or complete or healthy. People are constantly falling off the extremes of their viewpoints, when sense and health lies in a careful balance.

So what is a sensible amount of equality? Or what is a productive and healthy way to use this instinct we have to distribute status more equally? Or should our concern not be primarily to distribute status and value equally, but to see its production equally distributed? Structural equality of opportunity, if not of result?

There is certainly a good argument to seek equality of opportunity. That seems a reasonable compromise between unrealistic egalitarianism and unrestrained opportunism. Throw in a dash of kindness and charity that focuses on enabling production, not dependence, and you might have a decent beginning.

Everyone should be able to agree on that as a basic principle, even if there will no doubt be constant arguments about what equal opportunity and kindness means. In what sense do you have “equal opportunity” if you do not have equal chances at success itself (for various naturally unequal reasons)? That’s something we have to solve in the process, in discussion and negotiation and dialectic and relationship. The challenges of life aren’t something you can solve with a dead, mineral answer. It requires something living, growing, struggling, a living process. At some point people have to accept that the world is uneven by nature, and some part of that is necessary, and some part of it is good. And some part of it can be altered, and some part of it isn’t good. And both together make us who we are and who we could be.