Equality, most of the time, is not desirable

The idea of equality is often treated as an unquestionable good. However on closer reflection, you’ll see that absolute equality is rarely desirable. Equality, most of the time, is foolish. Apart from in a court of law, I cannot think of a time where equality produces more positive outcomes then negative. Equality should be applied to the legal sphere, where uniform rules for all citizens prevent arbitrary treatment. However beyond this, equality as a universal principle produces inefficiencies and even injustice.

Healthcare illustrates this clearly. While society may wish to ensure that a child with a serious illness receives treatment regardless of their financial circumstances, healthcare is inherently a scarce resource. Attempts by the state to provide healthcare to all, including those who do not pay financially into the healthcare, strains the system. Enforcing absolute equality in healthcare places unsustainable pressure on public resources. Restricting free healthcare to tax paying citizens or long-term contributors would ensure sustainability without undermining fairness. Absolute equality will ultimately break healthcare, resulting in increased death and misery.

Prioritizing one critical case over a minor injury does not violate the principle of fairness; rather, it acknowledges differing levels of need. Absolute equality, treating every case identically, would be impractical and, in many situations, harmful.

The broader lesson extends beyond healthcare. Human interactions operate on the grounds of merit, need, or circumstance. Individuals born into differing circumstances inevitably face difference opportunities. State-enforced levelling penalizes those who have legitimately earned wealth or opportunity. For instance, increasing taxes or VAT to fund universal redistribution will unfairly burden those who have made prudent choices and worked hard.

Civil society has long provided voluntary assistance to those who become ill and cannot pay for care. Charitable foundations, mutual aid societies, and local initiatives frequently addressed social needs long before the state assumed these roles. Even the NHS in the UK began as a charitable enterprise in Swindon before state takeover.

Ideologically-driven efforts to enforce equality fail because they seek certainty in an inherently uncertain world. Life is not a closed logical system where premises reliably produce conclusions. Attempts to pre-empt every potential injustice through state intervention creates a permanent bureaucracy that becomes tyrannical, consuming resources and undermining the very autonomy it seeks to protect.

Ultimately we must recognize human difference and scarcity. Legal equality remains crucial, but beyond the courtroom, nuanced, context-sensitive responses, grounded in prudence and moral judgment, produce better outcomes than rigid, universalist equality.