Equality of opportunity

“ And this, indeed, is what one asks of life. What should a free state in this modern world guarantee to all its citizens? Not that equality of condition for which many in our days plead, the dead level of insured and effortless comfort, but equality of opportunity, a free and fair chance for every man to be and to do his best. That land is best governed where the door of opportunity stands wide open to the humblest of its citizens, so that no man can shut it. ”

“ The equality of opportunity, which is the pride and promise of modern society, had its beginnings in those early days when the gate of emergence from lower class conditions was so seldom opened far anyone to pass out to where the ascent of Parnassus might quicken his ambition. ”

“ By doing so, we reaffirm the timeless American principle of equality of opportunity and help build a future in which the unique attributes of every citizen are recognized and allowed to develop for the good of all. ”

“ Is not this the equality of opportunity which forms the very life element of true democracy? On the one side the aristocracy of influence which grants or withholds as a favor what merit may claim as its right. On the other hand the democracy of equal opportunity which recognizes in all citizens alike the right of merit by giving the best man the best chance. ”

“ As equality of power or capacity does not exist in nature, all that can rightly be claimed in that direction is equality of opportunity, which includes recognition of the superior claims of merit and capacity, and therefore involves the divine principle of inequality of achievement. ”

“ Why practice thrift, or study efficiency, if rewards are to be shared independent of merit? Those who clamor most loudly for equality of opportunity, have in mind equality of results, which can be attained only by denying equality of opportunity. Equal opportunity in a foot race is secured when the start is even, the track kept clear and no one is permitted to foul his neighbor. But equality of results is impossible between contestants of unequal aptitude when all are given equality of opportunity. ”

“ Equality of opportunity does not demand or imply [114] equality of development. Many men are rich who use their wealth to forward the purposes of construction. Many there are who waste it and invite disintegration. Many men are poor, who use their strength to help along construction. They are forces of progress, and will find their places here. Many there are who delay the march, and invite disintegration. What shall it profit a man, though he gain the earth, if he lose his own soul? ”

“ To me the philosophic background of solution lies in rigorous application to economic life of our tried national ideal—the equality of opportunity and the preservation of industrial initiative; that is, the stimulation of every individual by his own effort to take that position in the community to which his abilities and character entitle him and the protection to him to attain that end. ”

“ If, then, it is, as it must be, the ideal aim of social arrangements generally to enable each to raise his capacities to their practical maximum, and adjust his desires and his expectations to the practical possibilities of attainment, "relative equality of opportunity," firstly in education and secondly in practical life, is a formula which accurately expresses the means by which this end is to be secured ”

“ The ideal would be to ensure that the whole of the industrial population had that original grant of health, security, and hope which is required to give reality to the idea of equality of opportunity. ”

“ Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come. The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. ”

“ In no small measure man now controls the forces of nature, and whole classes, formerly resigned to their fate, have become imbued with the idea that with a fairer division of wealth there should be a nearer approach to equality of opportunity. ”

“ What we ask is equality of opportunity, and we have much to do before that can be obtained. There are some who say that they do not believe in elevating the working classes, because it would leave the ground floor of the social edifice untenanted. ”

“ Indeed, it may be observed further that, though the idea of equality of opportunity in general is not inconsistent with a socialistic scheme of society, as socialists of the more thoughtful kind have now come to conceive of it, it belongs distinctively to the domain of the fiercest individual competition. ”

“ In politics, popular self- government (under the actual control of ruling groups or families) , in economics the growing application of equality of opportunity (within reasonable limits) were, up to the last decade of the nineteenth century, held to be sufficient guarantees for a pacific, prosperous future in all countries which had ranged themselves along self-governing lines.
Now it is no part of my intention here to engage upon the large task of a general explanation of the recent rapid changes in policy and thinking. ”

“ Finally, what is implied in the equal right of all to the pursuit of happiness? What form of happiness, so far as it depends at all on material facts, is not bound up with economic conditions; and how shall an equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness be guaranteed to all save by a guarantee of economic equality? ”

“ Equality of opportunity is the cardinal principle, and cannot be sacrificed in favor of enterprise. The enterprise that is wholesome keeps within this law. It may also be thought that this rigid restraint would deprive the community of some of the most prevalent means of welfare as well as of some of the most illustrious agents in prosperity, and that those great and efficient combinations which we have come to designate as trusts would be lost to us ”

“ Neither do the pre [Pg 73] cepts of justice require the state to furnish opportunities, nor even to establish equality of opportunity, but only equality of right to take advantage of opportunity. It is a saying, but not a fact, that opportunity knocks once at every man's door. Nature does not bring opportunities, much less equal opportunities, to men's doors. ”

“ So much for the question of the distribution of wealth. Is it possible to venture any definite conclusions, 283 at all, regarding the distribution of opportunity? The idea of equality of opportunity is not an easy one to define in terms of facts. It can be said that it would be realized, in the economic sphere, if such economic conditions prevail, as gave all individuals an approximately equal chance to follow their inclinations, and to make whatever use of their natural abilities they desire. ”

“ The chief objective point of modern endeavor has been individual freedom of choice. The laissez-faire doctrine in commercial relations, democracy in politics, the natural philosophy and natural theology of the eighteenth century are all expressions of a belief in equality. When men are made free to choose, they are placed on a basis of equality, since they have a like opportunity to succeed or fail. The man who chooses rightly wins success—the man who chooses wrongly fails. ”

“ Is the fox, then, or the financier, the highest animal in creation? Bah!
Humanity never bunked itself so thoroughly as{156} with the bunk of equality, even qualified down to “equal opportunity”.
In living life, we are all born with different powers, and different degrees of power: some higher, some lower. The only thing to do is honorably to accept it, and to live in the communion of power. Is it not better to serve a man in whom power lives, than to clamour for equality with Mr. ”

“ And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as a matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men. ”

“ Could you, to-morrow, reduce all men to one uniform and perfect level, in condition, in property, and in privileges, not a week would pass away without producing changes utterly destructive of perfect equality. ”

“ Truly, it is these secondary consequences, these moral and social reactions of economic equality to create a noble atmosphere of human intercourse, that, after all, have been the greatest contribution which the principle has made to human happiness. ”

“ So much for the intellectual qualities that marked the victors in the race for wealth under the miscalled competitive system; what of the moral? What were the qualities and practices which the successful seeker after great wealth must systematically cultivate and follow? ”

“ In a country eaten up with the kind of social insubordination disguised by the word Equality, a triumph of any kind whatsoever is a sort of miracle which requires, like some other miracles for that matter, the co-operation of skilled labor. ”

“ This broad natural equality of sentiment, rooted in equal material opportunities, equal education, equal laws, equal opportunities, and equal access to all positions of honor and trust, has just sufficient inequality mixed with it—in the shape of greater or less mental endowments, higher or lower degrees of culture, larger or smaller material possessions, and so on—to keep it sweet and human ”

“ Hence it follows that, a little sooner or a little later, according as circumstances shall be more or less favorable, general progress must lead all men from original and negative equality to a positive equivalence of talents and acquirements. ”

“ We have only to prove, then, that functions are equal to each other; just as laborers, who perform the same function, are equal to each other.
Are you astonished that I refuse to genius, to knowledge, to courage,—in a word, to all the excellences admired by the world,—the homage of dignities, the distinctions of power and wealth? It is not I who refuse it: it is economy, it is justice, it is liberty. ”

“ We are in no vain chase of an equality which would eliminate all individual initiative, and check all progress, by ignoring differences of capacity and strength, and rating muscles equal to brains. But we are in pursuit of equal laws, and a fairer chance of leading happy lives than humanity in general ever had yet. ”

“ Equality of all mankind was their watchword—perfect equality in all things—equality in possessions, and equality in position and influence, and equality in duties, resulting in equality in happiness and contentment.
The world belonged to all alike, and must be equally divided. Each man's labour was the property, not of himself, but of the State which fed and clothed him, and must be applied, not to his own aggrandisement, but to the enrichment of the race. ”

“ Then throughout the Western world one stratum of society after another demanded and obtained the right to acquire wealth and to share in the government. Here and there one bolder and more forceful than the rest acquired great wealth and with it great power. Not satisfied with reasonable gain, they sought to multiply it beyond all bounds of need. They who had sprung from the people a short life span ago were now throttling individual effort and shackling the great movement for equal rights and equal opportunity. ”

“ And, indeed, the main basis of distinction in this new world was a purely external one—the possession of wealth; and wealth was in no unreal sense the bequest of nature to capacity. Initiative and industry, rather than the dead hand of custom, marked a man for distinction and preferment. It was the land of opportunity where the servant could become the farmer, the farmer a planter, where the planter, acquiring by skill or happy chance a great estate, thereby entered in with the political and social grandees. ”

“ Well, I think it possible that you might establish, I will not say absolute equality, but an equality far greater than the world has ever seen; that you might exact from everybody some kind of productive work, in return for the guarantee of a comfortable livelihood. ”

“ Liberty he must have, and such position, high or low, for himself and others, as each man's individual merits will achieve for him. The doctrine of outward equality he eschews as a barrier to all ambition, and to all improvement. ”

“ The principle of equal opportunity was, no doubt, met only in a very rough and dubious fashion; but so favorable became the conditions in this respect that men came to persuade themselves in the course of the eighteenth century that a substantially equitable allotment of opportunities would result from the abrogation of all prerogatives other than the ownership of goods. ”

“ Even inequality of condition is the basis of progress, the incentive to exertion. Fortunately, if today we could make every man white, every woman as like man as nature permits, give to every human being the same opportunity of education, and divide equally among all the accumulated wealth of the world, tomorrow differences, unequal possession, and differentiation would begin again. ”

“ And this is the country which has lifted to the admiration of the world its ideals of absolutely free opportunity, where no man is supposed to be under any limitation except the limitations of his character and of his mind; where there is supposed to be no distinction of class, no distinction of blood, no distinction of social status, but where men win or lose on their merits. ”

“ What in the form of principle or theory was propounded as the equality of all has found here in competition its realization and practical carrying out; for égalité is—free competition. All are, before the State,—simple individuals; in society, or in relation to each other,—competitors.
I need be nothing further than a simple individual to be able to compete with all others aside from the prince and his family: a freedom which formerly was made impossible by the fact that only by means of one's corporation, and within it, did one enjoy any freedom of effort. ”

“ Thus association in equality is the law of progress. Association frees mental power for expenditure in improvement, and equality, or justice, or freedom—for the terms here signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law—prevents the dissipation of this power in fruitless struggles. ”