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Or equality of opportunity vs equality in outcomes.

• edgyquant 6y ago
  I’ve seen this thrown around by Jordan Peterson and his fans but I’ve never met anyone, regardless of how crazy their ideology was, advocate for equality of outcomes outside of basic necessities. I’m convinced it’s a strawman.
  • Phrodo_00 6y ago
    Haven't had a refresher on it since high school, so I might be totally out of the loop, but isn't equality of outcome the point of marxism?
    • jhgb 6y ago
      No, the point of Marxism is transitioning the society through socialism into communism.
    • bjl 6y ago
      Not even a little bit...
    • joshuamorton 6y ago
      No, not really in any sense. You might say that marxism is for more equal outcomes than we have under today's system, but that's true of lots of things that aren't marxist (any form of progressive taxation to fund social programs, for example). But even that's sort of an oversimplification and doesn't do either marxism or "equality of outcomes" justice.
    • Pfhreak 6y ago
      No, it's not. Marx was critical of the capitalist mode of production. Marxism is a lens of looking at economics and sociology. Communism and socialism, which are considered different in modern writing but were the same in Marx's time, are something Marx believes are an inevitable outcome of capitalism. Marxism suggests that when the workers own the companies, then benefits are distributed to the workers who own/operate the company. Profit doesn't get centered in individuals, it gets spread across the workers of a company. Folks like Lenin/Stalin took this idea further and created an authoritarian regime out of the ideas, and create what we commonly think of as 'communism' in the states. Edit: Parent comment asked a question about Marxism, I'm getting downvoted for explaining some high level concepts of Marxism? Do folks want me to dive deeper into the dialectical models Marx discussed? Lol
      • rjbwork 6y ago
        You're correct, of course. I was also downvoted for an even slightly more simplified version of this post. Not too surprising given the general demographics of HN being quite biased towards startup founders, VC's, and the like.
        • Pfhreak 6y ago
          I'd understand if I was out here being like, "SV SHOULD BE MARXIST" but I'm literally just answering a question that's a common misconception.
    • rjbwork 6y ago
      Not at all. Marxism is a method of analyzing history and the present through the lens of class conflict. Generally "Marxism" is thrown around as a boogie man term by people with little understanding for something approximating extreme authoritarianism in which the state owns all the means of production and allocates everyone the same resources.
      • jhgb 6y ago
        It's not "a boogie [sic] man". Marxist governments were definitely not "analyzing history", they were enacting government policies. That's what governments do, unsurprisingly. (Source: I grew up in a Marxist country and was taught Marxism by a Marxist teacher.)
        • rjbwork 6y ago
          You're probably thinking of Marxism-Leninism, though it's hard to know without knowing what country you're talking about. I'm not even sure what a "Marxist" country could possibly entail. They'd dedicate all resources to analyzing society through the lens of historical materialism?
          • jhgb 6y ago
            You surely won't be surprised if I tell you that Marxism-Leninism embeds the ideas of Marx about stages of societal development. Also, no; most prominently, we largely dedicated our resources to pointless heavy industry at the expense of light industry and services.
            • sudosysgen 6y ago
              Marxism-Leninism is a strict subset of Marxism. The Marxian ideas about stages of societal development for example have no bearing about whether you should focus on light or heavy industries. If you're talking about the USSR, there was actually some dissension after the death of Lenin on whether light industry or heavy industry should be focused on. Lenin wanted to focus especially on neither, with his NEP that would create a temporary market economy to figure that out on it's own. Eventually, the decision was taken to focus on heavy industry. The decisive arguments for a focus on heavy industry had nothing to do with Marxian economics - those arguments went either way. The main determinant of the Soviet focus on heavy industry was the failure of Stalin to obtain security assurances from Western Europe, leading to a focus on heavy industry for military purposes. At least in the 20s this was a solid move, because Soviet heavy industry saved tens of millions of lives by stalling the Nazi offensive, whose plan was to kill 50% of the Soviet population (something very bad). After the end of WW2 however, it was pointless in retrospect to continue the focus on heavy industry. But the Soviet Union did not really calculate the geopolitcal impact of nuclear weapons and built a military that could rival NATO, and this required a lot of heavy industry. Pretty much, Marxism had nothing to do with Soviet investment in heavy industry. The main reason was to feed the Soviet war machine, from the very beginning.
    • toyg 6y ago
      That's a common misconception about marxism. "To each according to his needs" does not mean "To each the same amount". Societies that reportedly strived to be marxist, still had different people doing different things and being granted different resources - and that's inevitable. It was even a typical complaint of soviet societies, the fact that "connected" people would get more than others. It just so happens that, given the pre-existent distribution of wealth will have followed other rules, the first step of marxist enaction inevitably ends up being "the big reset" where inequality of outcome gets temporarily removed for everyone.
    • sudosysgen 6y ago
      No. Marxism is for the abolish ment of social classes, with classes defined as contradictory groups related to relationships of production. So a Marxist would want, for example, the employer/employee distinction to be abolished. But there would be no issue with inequality in the employee class, an employee may very well produce 3-4 times more value than another. This is something that Marx explicitly wrote about - he thought that different people had different needs and abilities and thus should receive sometimes very different amounts of resources. The examples he gave would be someone that works much faster and better that someone else, or someone that has children to raise.
    • InitialLastName 6y ago
      The goal and concept of Marxism is to remove economic capital as an input to the circumstantial function that defines a person's outcome. What inputs' weights should increase to replace it is open to interpretation.
  • vimy 6y ago
    Progressives advocate abolishing advanced classes in high school because “they have too many white and Asian students”. Several schools have done so. That is equality of outcome in practice.
    • Loughla 6y ago
      The only times I've seen "advanced classes" get abolished is when districts KEPT advanced classes in high schools, but got rid of "ability tracking" (read: high, middle, and low-performing tracks) in early grades (k-6 usually). This is because low-income and minority students are more likely to be tracked low performing in lower grades, thereby baking in the inequity in the system. Eliminating those tracking systems, while keeping AP and other TAG programs is actually a very good way to ensure equality in access with no promise of equality in outcome. . . . Those headlines tend to get spun as "Chicago district eliminates advanced classes" or something to that effect, because it gets people riled (spelling?) up. Please, point me to your sources if you are talking about something different. EDIT: The tracking still occurs in early grades, the isolation grouping does not. Students are still tracked and tested for ability, deficiency, and performance. What they are not doing is grouping them exclusively into high, medium, and low, and letting those groups dictate resource access. They are grouping across abilities, allowing high performers to work with medium and low, thereby allowing them to take a leadership role while still providing the other two groups with valuable resources.
      • parineum 6y ago
        > This is because low-income and minority students are more likely to be tracked low performing in lower grades Are they actually lower performing or is this an effect of bias? It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that children with less resources do worse. I thought the purpose of performance tracking was to give the ability to help those who were struggling. Instead, you're saying that it's more helpful to just not know who's struggling and that somehow creates more equality.
        • Loughla 6y ago
          Edited for clarity. >Are they actually lower performing or is this an effect of bias? This is why these programs in early grades are eliminated - they absolutely were based on bias and external factors. Yes, children with less resources do worse. That was the problem. Students with less access would be tracked low, thereby ensuring they had access to even fewer resources (which were diverted to high performers and TAG classes). >Instead, you're saying that it's more helpful to just not know who's struggling and that somehow creates more equality. I didn't explain it well. They still track student ability for interventions, they don't group solely by ability. When they did the latter of those two, the have's had even more and the have-nots had even less.
  • Loughla 6y ago
    I don't know why you're being down-voted, you're right. I haven't met anyone, even in the insanely left and progressive university circles that I run in, who advocate for equality in outcome. It's equality in opportunity that's important. It's about letting 'your freedom as an individual to choose your own destiny' actually be 'free' from the start and not constrained by social mores, ingrained biases or discrimination, and/or other external factors. The freedom in outcomes argument is 100% a strawman used by far right pop culture icons to drum up views and clicks.
    • textgel 6y ago
      It's a core belief of progressivism; those who claim it isn't know it is but are interested in protecting a movement that gives them a means of attacking those they dislike.
      • sudosysgen 6y ago
        It absolutely isn't. Progressives, when they see inequality of outcomes at the group level, correctly identify an inequality of opportunity. There's no progressive in the world that thinks that everyone should have the same outcomes. That's different from wanting similar outcomes between groups of millions of people, because those almost invariably come from inequality of opportunity. I don't know of any left tendency that believes in equality of outcomes. Even communists don't believe in equality of outcome.
        • textgel 6y ago
          You believe in quotas, you believe in equality of outcome. In fact I could be inclined to agree with you in some ways; its more accurate to state that progressives don't believe in equality of outcome in much the same way as they don't really hold any disdain for racism/sexism or any of the other causes that claim to champion but they like the power that comes from doing so. For example no progressive has any issues with an imbalance in genders in nursing; this of course contrasts brilliantly against theirs views on it in the tech industry.
  • commandlinefan 6y ago
    > advocate for equality of outcomes Well, usually when I see somebody arguing "equity vs. equality", they're advocating strict racial quotas: absolute equality of outcome, at the level of race.
  • toomuchredbull 6y ago
    There's this thing called communism, not sure if you have heard of it but it's becoming quite popular again amongst the younger generation.
  • Manuel_D 6y ago
    I worked at a company that set a diversity target of 33% women in tech roles. In the same all-hands that announced this target leadership said using our definition of a "tech role" 20% of the workforce was women. To achieve this, we gave women two chances to pass the pre-onsite coding interview instead of one. Sure, this isn't as forceful as a hard 50/50 quota but it is pushing the needle away from equality and towards equity. Equity taking precedence over equality is also the basis of affirmative action used by private universities. And progressive taxation. In fact, I'm a supporter of equity over equality in plenty of instances beyond basic necessities. I think certain avenues to pursuing this are better than others, and that there are some instances where pursing equity over equality is misguided. But yes, I do believe there are instances where pursuing equity - at least in part - is better than exclusively pursuing equality.
    • intergalplan 6y ago
      > And progressive taxation. Point of order: I'm taxed the same on my one-millionth dollar of income (assuming the same source) as Jeff Bezos is. ... I just don't have a one-millionth dollar of income to tax, but if someone wants to shift things toward equality rather than equity I'll happily accept donations toward that end. To make things more equal for Bezos and to strike a blow against equity, naturally.
      • Manuel_D 6y ago
        > To make things more equal for Bezos and to strike a blow against equity, naturally. This is exactly my point: a flat tax rate would be more equal, but less equitable. And I do support a tax code that is more equitable, rather than more equal in this regard.
        • CRConrad 6y ago
          Yeah, taxing every dollar the same would be more equal... For dollars, but not for people.
  • etripe 6y ago
    Have you never seen people decrying unequal representation in, say, tech? I've seen plenty of people make that claim and expect the distribution of groups to match the distribution in the general population. That's equality of outcome, not opportunity. It's also only really possible in two scenarios: A. Everyone regardless of demographic has the same opportunities, talent and interest in tech B. You force people into positions they don't want and force people out that do want them The same goes for education, nursing, construction, sewage, fire fighting...
  • betwixthewires 6y ago
    The trick is in how broadly you define "basic necessities." Go talk to a plains Indian in the 1700s and ask them if a permanent structure all to themselves with running water and a refrigerator is a basic necessity. Now think about access to doctors and drugs. That's the real crux of what we talk about when we talk about equality of outcomes. What qualifies as a necessity? And that's when you start getting arguments that start with things like "well in a modern society..." You'll probably be hard pressed to find someone that says that someone deserves to starve to death because they're unwilling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. You'd probably also be equally hard pressed to find someone who thinks that waigu beef is a basic necessity. You say "strawman" and they say "moving the goalposts" and none of that is productive, this is a legitimate discussion that is going to be had, needs to be had and is not over or settled, shutting it down by calling the opposing viewpoint fallacious on false premises will not change that, it will only be counterproductive.
• Phrodo_00 6y ago
  Genuine question: Isn't this equivalent to equity vs equality?
  • giantg2 6y ago
    Exactly. There's a good fence and box example in here. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/equality-vs-equity-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/equality-vs-eq...
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Genuine question: Isn't this equivalent to equity vs equality? Not generally, no; “equity” generally refers to fairness of treatment (as distinct from non-differentiation in equality); while concepts of fairness vary, equivalence of outcomes not the moat common understanding pursued under the banner of “equity”. Which is not to say that the two are never (especially in particular narrow domains) the same, but they aren’t in general the same.
  • slg 6y ago
    In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome". Equity is closer to "equality of opportunity" than "equality of outcome". "Equality" is neither of those things because it doesn't correct for differences in opportunity and therefore obviously doesn't yield an equal outcome.
    • oftenwrong 6y ago
      >In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. I call it Harrison Bergeron: https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...
    • yamellasmallela 6y ago
      People who use "equity" really do mean equality of outcome, and that is a huge problem. Equality of outcome is undeniably evil.