Hayek on Equality

A brief excerpt from Friedrich Hayek’s essay, “Equality, Value and Merit.”

From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either the one or the other, but not both at the same time. The equality before the law which freedom requires leads to material inequality. Our argument will be that, though where the state must use coercion for other reasons, it should treat all people alike, the desire of making people more alike in their condition cannot be accepted in a free society as a justification for further and discriminatory coercion.

A careful reading of that essay (link above) is guaranteed to lead to profit and enlightenment. Read it a few times.

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

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