No One Actually Wants an Equal Society

[c172]

No but seriously, there's a difference between equal chances/opportunities and everyone being identical.

I don't think that people even want equality of opportunity.  I think most people would overwhelmingly prefer to be born into privilege.  Why do you think that Disney princess movies and the British monarchy are so wildly popular?  Why do so many people dream of winning the lottery?  Because people want privilege, not equality.  Especially if those privileges came from a windfall, like being born into royalty or winning the lottery.  

No one wants an equal society.  People would much prefer to have special privileges.

I would love to have been born  into having several million dollars so I could have my airpark home with the 3 bedrooms and the Chevy Silverado in the carpark and the HondaJet and Cessna 172 in the hangar. Yes, that involves some level of privilege. But I don't not want you all to have those same things or the money with which to make it happen if that's what you want. 

I just want it for my own enjoyment, not to flaunt.

[Pat Mustard]

We see the same forces at work in Britain amongst those living on benefits.

No you don't. I've lived on the dole for quite a few years, and know quite a few others who have too, and I've only met one single person who didn't do their damnedest to get off the dole and into something better.

[Mr Greene]

On the work program there's swarms.
Working in mental health I also encountered people pretending to have mental illness to be put on EESA and thus avoid having to sign on.
Some of the older ones were just spinning out their time till they could claim their pension.
The younger ones tend to be those with few qualifications or skills which I suspect leads to a position of hopelessness where the low-skilled/unskilled jobs market is flooded.

[brewer]

OP: I don't want to be and ant or bee.

[Aoi Magi]

In order to move forward, one foot will have to lag behind and hold the weight of the body while the other advances. Society works similarly, so if everyone were equal always, our progress would be at standstill, and if one side keeps lagging behind, we'd fall over. The ideal situation would be for the non-privileged to have an opportunity at catching up and moving past the privileged.

Though, in reality, that would only be possible if everyone cooperated, sort of like a hive mind... which I don't see happening, so I am guessing society will eventually fall over or collapse, and then will pick up itself again and continue limping forward as it is doing currently

[paulpablo]

I have an idea.  Why has inequality in society (wealth, race, gender, etc.) stubbornly persisted in spite of many decades of efforts to alleviate it?  Why has the discussion of privilege only intensified after much work to create equality?

If you actually look at what's been happening the last forty years you'd realise that serious efforts to equalise society stopped in the mid '70s. Before then (in terms of earning power at least) society was a lot flatter. Now; we're actually at worse levels of inequality than the '20s, and deliberately so.

I don't think that necessarily means less effort has been put into equality.
I just mean in general it's faulty logic to assume that results definitely correlate with effort.

[Chad32]

I can agree that practically everyone would like to be the person on top, but not everyone can be. The best thing, then, is to have checks and balances to protect the weak from the powerful, and you would think the powerful would all realize that if you help everyone reach a certain level of status, then it helps you too.

[vorlon13]

This topic goes back to Ananias and Saphira in the early days of Christianity.

That even the most pious and faithful followers of Christ in our era think the idea is bullshit is just another one of those gosh darn scripture cherry picking things I love to point out.

[InquiringMind]

Yeah, I agree with other posters that the OP confuses 'equal' with 'identical'.

Sure, everyone would like to have a stroke of luck now and then, but the overwhelming majority of people who enjoy special privileges weren't born into a privileged class, but work their arse off to get where they are (I exempt clerics, criminals, and career politicians).

Most people probably aren't so much looking for that lotto win (although I doubt many would turn it down) as they are looking for a level playing field.

Boru

The best predictor of a person's wealth is how rich their parents were.  The most reliable way to be rich is to have rich parents.  

I still maintain that most people don't want a level playing field; they would prefer a field that's tilted in their favor.  And last I checked, gambling - including the lottery and Las Vegas - is very popular.

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I don't think that people even want equality of opportunity.  I think most people would overwhelmingly prefer to be born into privilege.  Why do you think that Disney princess movies and the British monarchy are so wildly popular?  Why do so many people dream of winning the lottery?  Because people want privilege, not equality.  Especially if those privileges came from a windfall, like being born into royalty or winning the lottery.  

No one wants an equal society.  People would much prefer to have special privileges.

I would love to have been born  into having several million dollars so I could have my airpark home with the 3 bedrooms and the Chevy Silverado in the carpark and the HondaJet and Cessna 172 in the hangar. Yes, that involves some level of privilege. But I don't not want you all to have those same things or the money with which to make it happen if that's what you want. 

I just want it for my own enjoyment, not to flaunt.

Privilege is necessarily comparative.  It can't exist in a vacuum.  The only way to have privilege is to have some desirable outcome that others don't have.  Privilege is always a zero sum game.  You can't say, "I want to be rich, but I don't want others to have less money than me."  Being rich means having more money than other people.  Privilege is zero sum.

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It wouldn't really matter how much people want the kind of equality you're talking about, people aren't born equal.

The discussion of whether equality of opportunity is even possible is a different discussion.  I don't think it's possible, because of genetic differences and differences in good or bad luck.  But as I've said, I don't think that people even want equality of opportunity.  I think that people want at least equality, meaning that they will accept equality or special privileges, but not special oppression.  

Embracing equality of opportunity means that you'd have to give up whatever privileges you do have if other people don't have them, and few people are going to do that.

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Well, the lottery is exactly equality of opportunity. Rich or poor, you draws your numbers and you come up empty.

You come at it from the angle of the favored, but in my experience, the disfavored don't want a handout, they just want an honest chance in a rigged system.

No, the lottery is not equality of opportunity, because rich people can buy many more lottery tickets that poor people.  

The disfavored claim they want equality, but I claim that the disfavored would grant themselves special privileges if given the opportunity.  History shows this over and over: the oppressed, after they become powerful, become the oppressors.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Each chance is equal. Of course the rich can buy more.of something than poor folk can. The opportunity is upstream of the purchase.

Of course the rich have more opportunity after the fact of their wealth. What would be the point.otherwise?

As for what you claim other people want, meh. So you're jaundiced about humanity. Take a number and get in line.