THAT’S BECAUSE IRAN ISN’T A THREAT TO HIS POLITICAL POSITION OR SELF-ESTEEM THE WAY TRUMP IS:
You never lost a wink of sleep over what Iran was doing to its own people, to American soldiers, to Israeli civilians. https://t.co/6Ubmxb4DkE
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) April 7, 2026
It depends on what type of equality you are talking about.
1. If it’s equality of outcome, where people are at the same standard of living, you enter the Collective Farm fallacy in which, if you end up at the same level, the incentive is to put in as little effort as possible.
2. It could be equality of wealth, but this is a disincentive to save and invest lest some have it confiscated to equalize it. You might as well be profligate. So, it means there’ll be no investment that brings future wealth. You can probably produce equality of wealth if you make everybody equally poor, but that’s not a worthwhile goal.
3. If it’s equality of income, it’s a disincentive to work harder or to gain qualifications. If your income will be the same, why bother? You might as well be a freeloader.
4. Many people favour equality of opportunity. It’s difficult to achieve this in practice because of differing life circumstances. An example might be a child brought up by educated parents and encouraged to read. Parents might spend money on foreign experiences rather than clothes, cars and jewelry. Life’s experiences, especially in childhood, militate against equality. But everyone should have the opportunity to better their lot, even if not you can’t achieve equality of it. Opportunity is important, but equality isn’t.
5. One cannot have equality of abilities. It’s a biological fact that some people have natural talents that can be trained, talents such as music or mathematical, or sporting prowess. Thee cannot be made equal. A baseball star can perform to a huge audience who freely pay to see him. People often become unequal in outcome because they are unequal in talents. Most talents require training to bring them out, and some have the character to undergo that, whereas others do not.
6. Then there is the one must-have, which is equality before the law. This one matters most. Law must apply equally, regardless of status or wealth. Justice should see the crime, not the criminal. In unfree societies, the ruling elite are above the law. It is not the case in free, democratic ones.
Madsen Pirie
Social contract theorists say that the government’s authority is created by a contract between citizens and the state, whereby we agree to obey the laws and pay taxes, and the state agrees to protect us. I wrote the following dialogue to satirize the Social Contract Theory. The ridiculous things that the salesman says are analogous to things t…
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