Against equality of opportunity

Equality of opportunity is becoming popular. Alan Johnson says it "remains the great cause for progressives" and points to several younger New Labour figures supporting the ideal.
This is unwelcome. Equality of opportunity is unattractive, for at least four reasons:
1. It's infeasible. If equality of opportunity means anything, it means improving the education of poorer children, to equalize their life-chances with the rich. But US evidence suggests this requires massive increases in school spending; this is because the links between school spending and quality, and between school quality and life outcomes are both weak.
Of course, there's a cheaper way to equalize opportunities. But there's no way the middle-class or meeja would tolerate it.
2. It's insufficient. Imagine we introduced a compulsory lottery, where there was a £1m prize and ten "prizes" of the death penalty. We've created equality of opportunity. But few would tolerate such a lottery, as it's unacceptable to impose such risks onto people.
This thought experiment shows that we care outcome outcomes, not just opportunity.
3. It's not meritocratic. As Hayek pointed out, a free market - at best - only rewards skills that are in demand, and these will not often correspond to recgonixable merit. And Hayek was probably over-optimistic. Research on footballers (pdf) and Pokemon cards (pdf) confirms what we all know - that superstar incomes are largely arbitrary. And of course, countless big salaries, in the public and private sector, are rewards to rent-seeking and office politics. An equal opportunity to become a talentless parasite is not an attractive ideal.
4. It destroys social solidarity. This point was made by Michael Young in his classic Rise of the Meritocracy.  If the rich and successful feel they "deserve" their success, and that the poor are only poor because they squandered their opportunities, they will become even smugger and more ruthless than they already are. "Noblesse oblige" may have been greatly exaggerated, but it existed because the more sensible of the rich knew they were lucky, not meritorious,
I'm not sure if this means equality of opportunity is merely insufficient as an ideal for the left, or whether it's entirely the wrong ideal.

Comments

[james higham]

Points 1 & 3 yes. Point 2: "Imagine we introduced a compulsory lottery." Chris, how is "penalty" an analogy for "reward"? Point 4: How can it destroy solidarity which you admit was never there - "feel they deserve". Your piece from 2004 on Harris was excellent - I didn't realize you'd been blogging that long.

[Shuggy]

I think it was Hayek who also pointed out that genuine equality of opportunity would require the elimination of all the advantages that a person might have due to their particular family background etc. In other words, it would require a level of state intervention that would be intolerable.

'Equality of opportunity' means careers open to talent - nothing more, nothing less. As a leftist idea, then, it's an insufficient ideal.

[Jarndyce]

It's entirely the wrong ideal, because in addition to what you say above, it's also impossible (not simply "infeasible"). There's no way to equalize opportunity without addressing people's initial endowments. So, we could lobotomize 90%+ of us and raise us all in identical children's homes. I suspect that would be rejected as instinctively unethical, even if we could measure intelligence accurately enough to make sure we lobotmoized the correct 90%.

It's the wrong ideal, then, because it sounds so attractive, even intuitive and *fair* if you don't take a minute to think about it.

[dearieme]

'Equality of opportunity': why must the left always talk in extreme, often belligerent, terms? Why must we have equality, why must this be maximised, that eliminated and t'other never happen again? How about just trying to move in a desired direction, with this improved, that ameliorated and t'other reduced in frequency?

[Sunny]

Hmm... I'm a big supporter of equality of opportunity so let me try and put an opposing POV.

1) Sure it's unfeasible in it's entirety but so is getting rid of unemployment, inflation, Cot deaths and taxes. But surely that doesn't mean we can aspire to marginally more egalitarian world? Once the marfinal costs of imposing more equality of opportunity outweight the benefits, then you stop.

2) Sure... but that doesn't mean EoO should be the only policy of a progressive government.

3) I'm a bit confused here. EoO does not suggest people should be paid equally. The free-market does reward skills in demand and talented people, we just need to build a society where people from disadvantaged backgrounds also have the opportunity to get their talents and skills noticed. Or have I misunderstood this point?

4) I'm not so sure about this. I'd say there was more class-based smugness in the UK than the USA. But the latter is much more focused on equality of opportunity, even implementing positive discrimination to that end, than the UK.

In contrast in India, where equality of opportunity isn't really a big goal and everything depends on who you know (despite the quotas), there is hardly any class solidarity.
I think solidarity is more to do with local culture than how focused on meritocracy a country is.

Look forward to your thoughts.

[Chris Williams]

Sometimes I fantasise about kidnapping the Prime Minister, reading him all of Young's _Rise of the Meritocracy_, then kicking him in the balls and letting him go.

Especially that bit about the thin end of the wedge being when a member of the House of Lords got (it's a 'looking back from the disaster in 2020' book) made Education Secretary.

[sonia]

interesting.

what's social solidarity? that sounds like as unfeasible as anything else...

[sonia]

of course it would be most amusing to see if there is some more 'social solidarity' in countries where say there's zero - like - zero equality of opportunity, like say - Bangladesh. If you can't afford university - probably can't afford school - can't afford anything - it would be interesting to look at the social dynamic there. i'm from bangladesh as it happens - and you know what? - it's as if people live in the same country, and are in completely different worlds.

[Robert]

I hope you don't mind me pasting a paragraph I wrote in the comments of my own blog a short while ago:

"But I am also against inequality of opportunity because it is inefficient. To choose one extreme example, if the “spaz” or “special needs” kid gets bullied, it is less likely that he will grow-up to be Stephen Hawking (yes, I’m mixing my immobilities here, but I hope you get the point). Likewise, if people are hitting glass ceilings because of race, gender or orientation, then we risk losing the best person for the job. That is a bad thing for that person – tough luck, you might say – but it is also bad whatever it is you are trying to produce. That is bad for economy. And when you begin to consider art, science and even sporting endeavour, its bad for humanity too."

Don't know whether that helps...