A prominent Republican leader in the USA once compared the poor taxpayer with a goose. The key in government policy was “to pluck as many feathers as possible with a minimum of screams.” The government then distributes the feathers to the numerous people (who are willing to sleep in soft feathers!) in a way that maximises support at the voting polls. Therefore, the dose of egalitarianism among politicians drives them toward an “art of calculated swindling.” In other words: how to cheat and never get caught.
There are two ways a man can get rich: production and redistribution. People can develop their wealth by producing goods (and services) and exchanging them for a revenue. However, sometimes the accepted norms allow people to develop their wealth by “redistributing” what others produce. This method not only does not create additional income (one’s gain is another’s loss) but it consumes resources and therefore eats away at the society’s wealth. It has been assumed that redistribution would level social inequality and each individual would receive a “stock” of goods and services according to his or her aspirations. Redistribution is particularly targeted at the “disfavoured” ones.
The idea is suggested that they, too, are entitled to owning a minimal “stock” of goods that will procure them a decent living. Obviously, an imperfect and opportunist vocabulary is used. One cannot obtain an equal privilege without its acquisition being that necessary factor called “privilege.” Furthermore, this vocabulary reveals the supposition that the human being is an “inert organism.” The assumption of passive behaviour stems from the tendency to regard the poor as “victims,” a metaphor which suggests that this social condition of the individual is not the result of human action. This hypothesis illustrates once again the egalitarian tendency to describe inequality as being generated from outside the economic system. And this does not involve any connection between egalitarianism and its offensive doctrine.
Egalitarianism, regarded as a redistribution process, implies the idea that “victims” should be rescued from the outside. A cult thus emerges according to which benefits descend from a mysterious environment and not from producers’ toil and sweat. Moreover, these benefits are seen as some “obligation” cashed in directly from the rich.
If the solution to inequality is in the redistribution of wealth to the community, then mechanisms must exist to accomplish this. This is not to say the rich amasses more wealth and is getting richer, which is the cause of poverty. But the supposition is impossible, because if the rich were to give his wealth away to the poor, the latter would cease being poor. We should think that human beings are organisms in the pursuit of satisfaction/happiness. Or we should see life in other terms (at least in other aspects), as a change or as a game, as Thomas Hobbes does. He believes life is “a race” where it’s not winning that matters but taking part. In such a concept, to secure balance for the whole, failure appears as necessary as success, because success is not only a painful dissatisfaction but a principle according to which individuals learn about their capacity and character. They perceive the start line, beginning from which their aspirations can develop. In a way, failure is good but in other ways, as Kipling reminds, it is less of an impostor than success. Without a doubt, someone can have too many failures. In this vision of human life (in contrast with the idea that human life is a package of social satisfaction) the idea itself of failure becomes vexing.
Often, people born in poverty develop their will and capacity in a remarkable way, whereas those born rich end up living miserable lives. From here, we may deduce that some people suffer from shortages. Undoubtedly, with a “standard living level,” some fundamental needs – food, lodging, health care – can be over-valued. But this model of human life, made of a set of elementary (standardised) needs has no relation to the present game of human life. The researcher-sociologist changes the rules of the game like an observer who changes the object of his observation.
How could someone reject the egalitarian project? Of course, not with anti-egalitarianism. Our preferences are for the term “pluralist.” Some proponents of egalitarianism could object that they themselves pursue all possible aspirations in life without ever attaining them. Up until this presentation of arguments, we assert that egalitarian projects see in human beings organisms with needs satisfied by objects that have a single value. At the same time, the pluralist conception asserts that human life is a game of taking chances. In general, people oscillate between these two forms of existence (between the comfort of safety and the risk of accomplishment). Although freedom has survived in democratic societies (of a liberal making), it suggests that our deepest attitudes remain the ludic ones.
Egalitarian advocates assume that human beings are “passive,” burdened by needs, rather than makers of their own fate. This is the result of the ideological concept of the proletariat, suitable to impress the ideas of forefront intellectuals. But in examining this hypothesis, we have not changed the idea that well-being and poverty are causally connected. Some nations stand out with increased well-being, while others live in dire poverty. But both well-being and poverty should be treated as distinct problems. Of course, solutions should differ.
Against the economic decline and poverty amidst the populace, the President of Romania has put forth various solutions, ranging from “poverty eradication” to “national philanthropy” (the solidarity fund, for instance). But none had a real impact on reducing wealth discrepancies. If wealth, treated as luxury, is the goal of egalitarianism, then a possible solution is to invigorate the paternalistic state, which listens to the voice of various interest groups. The latter are eager to claim advantages and facilities. Of course, few can disseminate between the analysed problems. Nevertheless, polls show that 56% of populace regret the former egalitarian regime. Differences in wealth are hard to endure, especially that the promised well-being is long overdue.
“There is no need for concern about the rich,” God tells the poor. Some individuals may be driven by compassion for the poor, some by hatred for the rich (or by both). Obviously, temper and the reality of the egalitarian project will be different, depending on the dominance of either passion.
Compassion for the poor is the card played by every politician with egalitarian inclinations.
Today, compassion for the poor in the Romanian society is dominant before a potential hatred for the rich (although the polls have unveiled such passions, too). But since western nations have increased their wealth, and well-being measures the real (decreasing) poverty, the rhetoric link between the two passions diminishes. In the West, “absolute” poverty has been abolished. A new concept was invented: “relative poverty.” This means that the rich cannot sensibly improve their condition without this improvement demoting the “worse-off” back to poverty. Therefore, legislative corrections are often made for redistribution, which translates social life to a different condition. The rich are on a high level in the social hierarchy, the poor have always lagged behind, deprived of rights, under-privileged, disfavoured. The only solution would be to “stop” the rich in their ascent and stabilise the society at a standard living level (in a certain technological perspective). Communism (as a social experiment) has actually been a model of poverty distribution. This experiment would allegedly bring Romania to “new peaks of progress and civilisation,” provided that the rest of the world (especially the West) remained stationary. We can conclude that the inefficiency of egalitarianism is largely apparent in the way it tried to merge the two problems (richness and poverty) into one, because they are connected morally and causally. This connection seemed plausible and significant in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the luxury of the few made a sharp contrast with the poverty of others. The growth of well-being in modern economies has made this connection much less plausible.
There are people who, for religious or other reasons, willingly elect an austere life where they forgo many of the luxury items present in modern life. Those who live in a “relative” poverty” (but are decently fed and dressed) are considered “passive and resource-less beings,” compared to the “inert beings” in the theory of egalitarianism. What is needed to maintain the egalitarianism is a more general issue whose solution must be the attenuation of inequality. It relies on the idea that inequalities are “socially divisible.” We identify it in the latest UN report on human development. But in many countries with a modern economy, redistribution mechanisms can no longer be sustained by the providential state. This is what Premier Isarescu suggests for Romania. A recovery of economic growth and not redistribution is the solution for Romania at the beginning of the millennium.