Equal Opporunity versus Individual Opportunity; A. Wortham

This is the central value problem of the postindustrial society." Equality is not a concept con cocted for their convenience by ~nlightened American revolutionAnne Wortham is a Research Librarian in the news syndication industries. One of her earlier articles from THE FREEMAN is included in The Libertarian Alternative: Essays In Social and Political Philosophy. This article is ex cerpted from her forthcoming book profiling race conscious prototypes among American Negroes. 416 aries to rationalize their demands for independence from the en croachments of colonial rule. It does not refer to the biological classifications of men, their socio economic status, nor to their attri butes of character and personality. Yet it is to such things that so much of the continuing debate over equality refers. And when various pressure groups demand their right to equal opportunity, it is not political equality (as the concept properly means) that they desire but equality of condition.

Their intent on divesting equality of its authentic meaning is as vir ulent today as it was ten years ago when President Lyndon B. J ohn son told a graduating class: "We seek not just legal equity . . . not just equality as a right and a theo ry but equality as a fact and equal ity as a result." The movement toward equality of condition reached its height during the nineteen sixties and has been gathering a steady stream of advocates who petition for the legal recognition and political sanction of everything from "rights 1975 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY VERSUS INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITY 417 of the unborn" to "rights of the elderly." These egalitarians say tha t their motive is justice; that they speak in behalf of the decen cy and betterment of mankind. But their actions call for the rule of force, power, pull and pressure among men. Equality and Rights Noone touts the phrase "all men are created equal" more than the egalitarian and no one consid ers its true meaning less than he.

In the human context, equality re fers to the fundamental identity of man which is equally applicable to all individuals: A rational ani mal-i.e., an animal possessing the faculty of reason. It is this self evident truth of man's nature that gives rise to human rights-those conditions of man's nature that are re,quired for his proper surviv al and which define and sanction his freedom of action in a social context. And it is man's rights that give meaning to the concept of equality. Equality is an ethical political concept, meaning that by their nature all men possess equal and inalienable rights to life, lib erty and property. It measures man's political relationship to oth er men and to political authority, meaning: (1) that all men should have equal status before the law and (2) that each person should enjoy equal conditions of civil freedom, asserted by objective law and based on human rights, in or der to achieve whatever goals his own intelligence and industry will allow.

Man's fundamental right - the one on which all others depend - is the right to his own life. The phrase, "all men are created equal," means that all men are born with the right to life and the rights in herent in the ownership of life. But the process of living is not something done to man; rather it is continuous action that he must generate and sustain. Similarly, the actualization of human rights must be performed by the individ ual according to standards appro priate to his survival. He must act to achieve and maintain the values of life to which rights pertain and it is by that action that he asserts his independence of other men. This is the point made by Thomas Jefferson in his original (but later edited) declaration that all men are created equal and independent. Stressing the independence of man underscores the fact that human rights begin and end with the in dividual; that they are not per missions, privileges, or conditions granted to men by social institu tions, by the law, or by one's neigh bors; that institutions should only protect and preserve them, and one's neighbors should only respect them.

418 THE FREEMAN July We cannot speak of equal rights without also considering the inde pendent nature of man. Any at tempt to do so is an attempt to by pass the objective evidence of man's separateness and in the end to render the role of reason in his existence as null and void. Rights and Opportunities Few stop to question the egali tarian standards that dictate the meaning they attach to the concept of equality, and in every occasion of their misuse of it the definition of man's rights is further evaded. The most prevalent misuse of equality occurs in the use of the concept of equal opportunity. Those who would subject man to the rule of faith refer to "opportunities" as though they were inexplicable miracles occurring in reality by the grace of a supernatural power. Those who see man as the servant of society's "will" refer to "oppor tunities" as though they were ar bitrary privileges dispensed by a feudal lord to his vassals.

When some egalitarians advo cate equal opportunity, they mean tha t men of excellence should be red uced to the lowest common de nominator of the least among them. Others advocate it meaning that the least among-men should be raised by efforts other than their own to the level of men of excellence. Today we witness an alliance of the two: on the one hand, there is the demand that all men be given the opportunities and rewards of -excellence whether or not they value excellence and have the will and ability to attain it. On the other hand, we are surrounded by those who proclaim that the best life for man is that he rise no higher than the lowest among him - that to do otherwise is neces sarily to exploit his neighbor's weakness and misfortune. The re sult of this alliance exists in the person who would bypass the cause and identity of excellence and de clare that the worst performance be deemed the excellent. Medioc rity is his vested interest and the destruction of merit is his goal.

Such are the distortions of the concept of opportunities, made pos sible by the evasion of man's na ture and the rights it entails. What does the concept really mean and how is it reIated to the concept of equal rights? Just as the principle of individ ual rights gives meaning to the concept of equality, so does it give meaning to the concept of "oppor tunity." As rights are defined as "conditions of existence required by man's nature for his prop,er survival," opportunities are defined as situations, conditions, occasions or a combination of circumstances of man's social existence that are favorable for the attainment of a 1975 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY VERSUS INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITY 419 goal. There is an attempt by some egalitarians to equate opportuni ties with rights; but while rights give meaning to opportunities, they are not interchangeable con cepts. An individual has no more right to opportunities than he has to happiness; but as in the case of happiness and all rewards of suc cessful Iiving, he does have the right to pursue opportunities.

Man's rights are his by moral principle and by his nature. An in dividual's .opportunities are his by moral principle and by his choice; they are the resulting expressions of man's rights. Man's rights are self-evident, but his opportunities are not. They do not spring forth like the goddess Athena from the head of Zeus, .fully formed and perfected. As with everything else man needs, opportunities must be discovered by his mind and brought into existence by his effort. Just as all living organisms must generate the course of action that is biologically appropriate for their survival, man - the being of con ceptual consciousness - must ini tiate the course of action neces sary to create and choose oppor tunities - the intellectual and so cial conditions appropriate to his survival. The fundamental condi tion that man requires for his survival is the right to freedom intellectual and political freedom.

The right to intellectual freedom is the right to make the voluntary, uncoerced choice to think or not to think. The corollary of man's right to intellectual freedom is his right to political freedom - the right to make the voluntary, uncoerced choice· to act or not to act. Just as man's survival requires that his mind be free of the interference of ignorance, fear, guilt and irrespon sibility, so does it require that his social existence be free of the forceful interference of others. Po litical freedom affords man the op portunity to attain such social goals as peaceful co-existence, profitable exchange and accumu lation of knowledge and material goods, security and safety of per son and property. Opportunities and Freedom Opportunities are not the cause of individual freedom, but a con sequence of such freedom. All the opportunities in the world can be of no use to a man who is not in tellectually free to use them to his advantage. And a man who is not intellectually independent cannot create opportunities, or determine with any confidence which condi tions and circumstances in his en vironment are potential opportu nities (Le., appropriate to achiev ing his goals), or potential advers ities (Le., inimical to achieving his goals) .

Individuals differ in the methods 420 THE FREEMAN Ju.ly and standards by which they iden tify, evaluate and choose oppor tunities. The opportunities a man creates and chooses depend on the extent of his knowledge, context, in terests and values. One's knowledge of the existence of opportunities does not guarantee that he can or will take advantages of them. A tribal priest may learn that his village sits atop a vast oil field. But if he does not discover the sci entific means of extracting the oil and then choose the proper eco nomic means of converting oil into a marketable commodity of ex change, the bituminous mixture of hydrocarbons will remain where it is and be of no practical meaning or use to him at all. He may en counter men who are willing to ap ply their knowledge to its extrac tion and use, but refuses their assistance because he believes the oil is the drink of evil spirits that habitate the earth below. In such case, it is not the fault of those who realize the potential oppor tunities inherent in the extraction and marketing of the oil that the tribal priest continues to live in squalid conditions. The choice is his and he alone is responsible for the consequences of his choice.

In this instance, it is not even the man's lack of knowledge that hinders him from choosing to achieve the opportunities that the production of oil would afford him. It is his lack of intellectual free dom - his enslavement to the idea that the oil is not his to use but belongs to evil beings under ground - that holds him at a level of primitive subsistence rather than the more beneficial level that industrial productivity provides. It is not easy to live and pro duce in a society based on freedom of the individual and where suc cess is measured by individual ini tiative. The issue in America is not so much whether men have equal political freedom to create and choose opportunities, but whether in an atmosphere of social freedom, they will choose the in tellectual independence necessary to take advantage of that freedom. The responsibility to maintain the intellectual sovereignty one needs to achieve opportunities is always his own. A man whose mind is locked by his belief in underground spirits, by psychedelic drugs or by public opinion polls is automatic ally locked out of the opportuni ties of political freedom.

Opportunities and the Law Because all men are equal in their possession of a rational fac ulty, they need moral laws that treat them as equals. But there is a further reason why men must be equal before the law: to protect each individual's execution of his capacity to reason. If all men ex1975 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY VERSUS INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITY 421 e'Cuted their reason in the same way and to the same degree, they would be robots instead of men and there would be no need for the social recognition of reason or rights. It is the inequality of men - the unidentical conditions of hu man existence that individuals cre ate for themselves - that objective law must give identical protection and preservation. Social reformers tell us that un less men have the same social op portunities, they cannot know in dividual freedom. All the political freedom in the world can he of no use to a man who is hungry and indigent, they say. But it is the man who is hungry and indigent who needs intellectual and politi cal freedom the most. He needs in tellectual freedom in order to dis cover the means of changing his situation; he needs political free dom in order· that his activity will be protected from the interference of others. A hungry man in a slave state is limited to accepting what ever someone else does to elimi nate his hunger (and that could very well include sentencing him to death as undernourished and therefore useless to his masters) ; but the hungry man in a free state is limited solely by his own choice.

He may seek food by his own means; he may rely on the charity of others to maintain his life; or he may enlist the power of government to create special conditions that guarantee his livelihood at the expense of others. Egalitarians say that if men are equal in their identity as Man, they should live equally; that if in dividuals have equal status before the law, then it is the purpose of the law to provide the means by which they can achieve equal status in fact. The law, they say, cannot operate to give equal justice to men whose knowledge, values and pro ductivity are unequa1. The law can not address itself objectively to the prince and the pauper, the manager and the laborer, or the educated and the uneducated. Therefore, they 'Conclude,to insure equal treat ment from the law, the circum stances of men must he made equal. Men must be all princes or paupers - all managers or labor ers - all educated or all uneducat ed.

But the state of collective equal ity in which social evangelists would have men exist clashes with reality and contradicts the inde pendent nature of man. There can be no justice without political equality; but social equality is un fair - a breach of justice and a threat to political equality. Social equality requires that men lose re spect for their own freedom and individuality; it requires that they become indifferent to the manifes tations of individuality on the part 422 THE FREEMAN July of others. It requires that men be equals, not in freedom but in slav ery. The law - objective law - ad dresses itself to man's mind, not to his social position, his pocket book, his stomach, or his academic credentials. The idea that govern ment must provide or create oppor tunities for men is a contradiction in terms which ignores the proper relationship of political authority to individuals and evades the role of man's free will in the creation and pursuit of opportunities. Gov ernment's function is not to pro vide opportunities but to protect those which the individual creates for himself. Government cannot provide opportunities without also violating man's rights. And in a society where man's rights ·are not protected and his nature as a ratio nal being is not respected the issue of opportunities is moot.

Privileges Versus Opportunities Opportunities are fa.vorable con ditions of human existence but they are not unlimited. The oppor tunities of one man can extend no further than where the rights of another man begin. When one man trespasses another's .property to catch fish in his lake, what he per ceives as an opportunity to catch a meal is not an opportunity to which he is entitled, since the lake and the fish in it are the property of someone else. He has the right to create the means for feeding him self, but he does not have the right to a court order forcing the owner of the lake to give up his fish. When men attempt to bypass reality by invoking the force of government to create opportunities for themselves at the expense of the rights of other men, the con ditions they create are not oppor tunities as such, but political priv ileges: special advantages peculiar to themselves that exempt them from the usual course of law. They wish to be excluded from the con ditional nature of opportunities to secure a guarantee against ef fort - to render effects immune to their causes - to secure protection against the facts of reality.

A widely disputed speech re garding the issue of equal oppor tunities was made by the ex-slave and educator, Booker T. Washing ton, in 1895 before an audience of Negro and white southerners at the Atlanta Exposition. In that address he stated: "the wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant· struggle rather than of artificial forcing." By "privileges" Washington meant socio-economic pri vileges - those rewards of op1975 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY VERSUS INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITY 423 portunity that are the achieve ments of individuals and not the province of governmental policy and administration. As opposed to political privileges, socio-economic privileges are autonomous advan tages that are achieved voluntar ily and meritoriously within the confines of the law. Not all socio economic pri vileges are honestly or justly earned but they are, by def inition, achieved by lawful means.

Political privileges, on the other hand, are achieved not within the law but by distortion of the law; they are not earned but exist as the spoils of legalized plunder. The Legitimacy of Equal Opportunity Equal opportunity does have a legitimate meaning: equal politi cal freedom to create and choose conditions and circumstances fa vorable to man's existence. The concept properly refers to the po litical freedom to act and express oneself as an independent individ ual. It means that as each man has the freedom to think, so must ear-h man have equal freedom from the interference of those who choose not to think; that if man is to ex press his thinking, equal freedom from the interference of others is necessary in order that such ex pression may be manifest; that as each man must survive as an end in himself - as the owner of his life and person - so must each man have equal freedom to control his environment to produce what is needed for his survival; that the moral conditions of each man's ex istence (liis rights) must be given equal recognition and legal pro tection by objective law.

It is here that equal opportun ity among men ends. Anything less than this must be identified as a condition of slavery; anything more than this must be identified as a condition of political privilege. The principle of equal oppor tunity operates as a restriction on governmental power, commanding government to leave each man to pursue the values of his life as he sees fit. It is not the role of gov ernment to determine what values a man should pursue - nor to hire think-tank intellectuals to declare what values should guide a man's life. The government is as much prohibited from interfering with a person's success as with his fail ures. It is just as much an en croachment on personal freedom when the government acts to cir cumvent private failure as when it acts to promote personal success or to impede the success of one's competitors. It is not the business of govern ment to guarantee success or safe ty - only to uphold the right of each person to act upon the oppor tunities he perceives. ~ PROFIT and BRIAN SUMMERS WHEN there is no understanding, emotions carry the day . We see this in mobs. We see this in war.