Are We All Equal?

I was having a discussion with a very close friend of mine and the question arose:

"Are We All Equal?"

That question arose as we were pushing on the topic of egalitarian relationships between people and where does egalitarianism cross the line and become enabling. Where is an egalitarian relationship functional and where is it dysfunctional?

I know that as a Utopian desire everyone being equal has its place. However even in old philosophy everyone is not considered equal. The topic becomes even more obscure as we try and figure out what it means to be equal.

It seems that there are certain facets of equality that are different depending upon the relationship: Friends, Lovers, Professional, Mates, Parental, Competitors.

Each of these relationships imbues into the relationship a certain set of facets of equality. For example children in our culture (American) are not equal in decision making authority as compared to their parents. As a matter of law parents are responsible for the safety of their children and allowing a child to decide how late to stay out, how much (or if) to drink alcohol, what to wear or bring to school, puts certain burdens on the parent. Children and parents do not live in an egalitarian relationship the majority of the time. Parents can give children the authority of impart their desires but ultimate decision making authority lies in the adult.

So what about in a professional relationship? Can companies be run in an egalitarian framework? What about politics and societies as a whole? Are we really all equals? Or have we given authority, decision making, and enforcement to centralized bodies? When it comes to laws; judges, police, legislators, and other government positions certainly have greater strength than each public individual. When it comes to corporate governance, the higher ups (in fact we have language that specifies a hierarchy as Superiors), are not equal to the employees in the trenches.

What about lovers, mates, personal relationships? In many countries men and women explicitly are not equal. In the American culture two mates in a relationship ideally come from the exact same level, however that typically is not the case. Depending upon the decision one person in the couple will have authority (for example 80% of all purchase decisions are made by the head female figure in the family). In fact we have language to show this positioning - "he/she wears the pants in the family."

So with all this positioning it seems that egalitarian rule is an ideal that is not widely made its way into day-to-day living. Why?

In assuming that everyone is equal, I am going to posit the following:

1.) All traits necessary to make a specific decision are equal
2.) The outcome (costs, both implicit and explicit - see the posting on decisions and costs) are equally shared

If the above two points are true, then perhaps an egalitarian point of view is appropriate. However, it seems that in most human relationships, the above is not true (in fact it is a specialized case of an economic externality) and consequently pushing an egalitarian agenda seems dysfunctional.

Just my $0.02. I could be wrong.

See you on the wire

- Steven