Introduction

One of the main values that supporters of socialism claim it fosters is equality, and one of the main values that supporters of capitalism claim it fosters is liberty. Supporters of socialism maintain, moreover, that the inequality to which capitalism leads is one of its primary flaws, whereas supporters of capitalism, for their part, often maintain that there is little or no individual liberty under socialism. This suggests a tension between freedom and equality. On the one hand, to the extent that we allow individuals to make decisions about how to direct their own lives without uninvited interference from third parties, the more people’s individual diversity will result in differential outcomes. On the other hand, the more that we attempt to achieve equality, the more we will, in practice, have to limit the scope of people’s individual liberty.

I argued in Chapter 9 that this is not a tradeoff worth making, or at least that we should err on the side of liberty rather than equality, so important is individual liberty to generating and maintaining moral agency and hence human dignity. But that leaves capitalism guilty of the charge of fostering inequality: if capitalism leads to both prosperity and inequality, it still leads to inequality. And indeed, capitalism does allow, even perhaps require, inequality. Because people’s talents, skills, and values vary, because people’s desires and attitudes and preferences vary, and because of sheer luck, some people will generate more wealth in a free enterprise system than others will. The question is whether we should worry about it—and, if so, what we should do about it.