CONCLUSION

The main contribution of the equality-of-opportunity literature to the vast literature on inequality is to point out that the source of inequality matters from an ethical viewpoint.

Most would agree that effects of circumstances on persons’ well-being that are beyond the control of individuals should be rectified, while at least some differential outcomes due to choice are not compensable at the bar of justice. Thus, measures of inequality as such are not terribly useful—unless one is a simple outcome-egalitarian, who views all inequality as unjust. To the extent that economists ignore this ethical principle— and popular view—their measurements of inequality will not persuade people to rectify it.

As we said, the theory of equal opportunity involves both an equalizing aspect and a disequalizing one. Some philosophers focus—we believe excessively—on the disequaliz- ing aspect, which induces criticisms of the approach from the left. We mention the work of Scheffler (2003) and Anderson (1999), both of whom criticize what they call “luck egalitarianism” as too focused on individual choice: to this they oppose a view of “democratic equality,” which involves treating all persons with equal dignity and respect. Indeed, one would surely be sympathetic to their complaint, if the entirety of the equalopportunity approach were limited to cases of expensive tastes, whether or not society should pay for the hospitalization of the motor cyclist who crashes having chosen not to wear a helmet, or even with the more socially important issue of the responsibility for smoking-related disease. These examples focus upon the disequalizing aspect of the equal-opportunity view—that the effects of imprudent choices are not compensable in the strict interpretation of the view. However, we believe that the main focus of the EOp view is upon its mandate for equalization of outcomes that are due to differential circumstances: Most urgently, at this juncture in history, for eliminating differences in income, health, and educational achievement which are due to the vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds in which children are raised, due in large part to the institutions of our capitalist societies.

The bourgeois revolutions, which eliminated feudalism and inequality of opportunity due to arbitrary social status, although not complete (think of caste in India), marked a huge advance in the equalization of opportunities: but they replaced feudal inequality of opportunity with inequality of opportunity due to differential wealth. Of course, ancient forms of inequality of opportunity, due to gender, ethnicity, and race still remain as well. The Nordic social democracies have done most at eliminating inequality of opportunity due to income and wealth.^[169]

We have characterized economic development earlier as an elimination of inequality of opportunity due to parental socioeconomic status. Assuming development continues globally, according to this measure, we will eventually replace the most important circumstance with—we conjecture—inequality due to natural talent. Many people in the experiments we reported support the meritocratic view, that returns to natural talent are just. Perhaps, as we succeed gradually in eliminating inequalities of important objectives that are due to differential wealth, the focus will then turn to inequalities due to differential natural talent. This would not necessarily require that untalented people be compensated for not having access to the pleasure which talented people enjoy from exercising their talents, but it may well require that no income advantage accrue to the talented. (The taxman will not bill you because you get great pleasure from singing in the shower.) Think of the communist slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” That slogan does not begrudge the psychological pleasure and social respect that talent garners, but advocates a complete separation of income from talent.

Skeptics will say that markets will always be necessary in large and complex societies, and markets cannot operate efficiently if earnings are too sharply divorced from productive contribution. But this view accepts without question the assumption that individuals always maximize selfishly against the tax regime, or other redistributive policy, which they face.

In other words, the incentive problem, so central to economic theory today, takes that problem as a fact of nature, like Newton’s laws of gravitation. It is, however, not a fact of that kind, but rather a corollary to a particular human psychology, that has developed in a particular historical epoch, when material scarcity is still prevalent globally, and capitalist economic relations are virtually ubiquitous.^[170] It is quite possible (and we believe it to be so) that human material needs are limited, and an historical period will arrive, perhaps relatively soon, when they are more or less universally satisfied. Keynes (1930) in fact argued that such an epoch was virtually upon us, at least in what he called the progressive countries, and that attitudes toward material acquisition would change radically over the next century. If and when this occurs, it seems to us quite reasonable to conjecture that societies will attempt to eliminate differential rewards to talent, having by then done away with inequalities due to feudal status, and capitalist wealth. The question of how an economic mechanism can accomplish this efficiently may well be the central problem for economists of that era.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Tony Atkinson, Francois Bourguignon, Marc Fleurbaey, and Erik Schokkaert for their comments on previous drafts of his chapter. Alain Trannoy thanks the support ofthe A*MIDEX project (n⁰ ANR-11- IDEX-0001-02).

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