On The Relation Of Liberty And Equality Of Neo-liberalism

The publication of Rawls'A Theory of Justice in 1971 symbolized a new ear of liberalism——the ear of Neo-liberalism. And the fundamental different between classical liberalism and neo-liberalism is the transition of themes: the theme in classical liberalism is freedom, while as for Rawls, the theme of political philosophy is justice, and justice always means equality, thus the theme of political philosophy has switched from freedom to equality. The importance of Rawls's theory lies in the fact that he accomplished the transition of the themes in western political philosophy. After this transition, neo-liberalism is confronted with the problem of balancing between freedom and equality——the two major political values in modern times. There are three figures that should be mentioned according to neo-liberalism: Rawls, Nozick and Dworkin, who have responded to this problem respectively. Rawls insists on the priority of freedom, while Nozick is a libertarianist and Dworkin insist on the supremacy of equality. Although, they have different ways of resolving the problem of balancing between freedom and equality, they all resort to the priority principle and maintain freedom's priority, which is a symbol that they all belong to the liberal school. Meanwhile, the individualism which is contained in their liberal theories as the presupposition is something should be criticized and surpassed.There are four chapters in this dissertation. In the first chapter, Rawls'resolution of the relationship between freedom and equality will be discussed. As for Rawls, freedom and equality are all the most important political values, the accomplishment of freedom is not enough, equality should also be established; relatively, the problem of freedom is easier to resolve, while equality is a more arduous task, and now is the time to take the problem of equality more seriously; further more, the values of freedom and equality are closely connected, freedom without equality is only formal. Rawlsian theory of justice tries to combine the major two political values together, which is eminent in his two principles of justice, thus, if a society is designed according to these two principles it would be a just society. The first principle is"principle of equal liberty", and the second principle is"principle of fair equality of opportunity"and"difference principle". As for the content of these two principles, the first principle is about liberty, while the second is about equality. Social and economic inequality should be rectified by"principle of fair equality of opportunity"and"difference principle", while"principle of fair equality of opportunity"should be priory to"difference principle". As for the formal aspect of these two principles, the first principle is an equal principle while the second is an unequal one which mainly applies in economic area. As for Rawls, although justice always means equality, absolute equality is impossible, so, where equal distribution is possible it should be distributed equally while unequal distribution should also be permitted where equal distribution is impossible. However, unequal distributions should be conditioned by the'difference principle'——comply with the maximal interests of those'least-advantaged'which is a guarantee of equality and justice.Rawlsian idea of equality is most evident in the"difference principle", which is called by Rawls as"democratic equality". For Rawls, the"least advantaged"people in a society is those who have the least income and wealth, and the reason why they have the least income and wealth is because they possesses the most disadvantaged position in social and cultural aspect or poorly inherited in natural endowments. But, from a moral perspective, neither social elements (social and cultural conditions) nor natural endowments are something people deserve; thus, a just distribution should eliminate those accidental factors, so as to promote the way of distributing income and wealth that would mostly benefits those"least-advantaged"people.Rawls'difference principle is consistent to substantive equality. But, for Rawls, it is only after the establishment of liberal institutions can we pursue the substantive equality in social and economic areas. That is to say, when fundamental freedoms and substantive equality are in conflict, equality would be overwhelmed by fundamental freedom. This kind of priority of liberty is promoted by the lexical order of the two principles of justice. Rawls'position on the relationship between liberty and equality is reflected by the priority of liberty: the value of freedom is overwhelming. Liberty could only be limited by the sake of liberty itself, not by equality; besides this, liberty should not be limited.Although, Rawls confirmed the priority of liberty, Nozick still conceived this to be not enough. As for Nozick,"difference principle"would violate people's freedom and rights, thus Nozick is a libertarianist.Chapter Two would be dealing with Nozick's resolution upon the relationship between liberty and equality. As is all known, Nozick is against Rawls, and most persuasive argument he offered is rights, which is the foundation and core idea of his theory. For Nozick, people have all kinds of rights, such as the right to their lives, the right to their freedom and property rights, among which the right to freedom is most important. Rights are inviolable which constitute"side constraint"to both government and individuals. Nozick's theory is fulfilled by rights, where no room is left for other political values such as equality. Freedom and rights have the supreme priority, and, compared to freedom, equality is nothing. For, Rawls justice always means equality which is represented by the"difference principle", while quite opposite for Nozick,"difference principle"is an unjust principle.As for Nozick, justice means rights; as long as people have rights over their holdings, these holding are just, and however unequal those holding may be. Nozick insist on rights and his position on equality is that the feudal system of identity should be abolished, and everyone is endowed with equal status and rights, thus, people could enter freely into the market without any privilege to compete with each other. So, equality in rights is totally formal, everyone is equal to enter into the society. But, any member of the society is always subject to the influence of natural (quality of natural endowments) and social elements (family and social environment) which would cause great inequalities in people's income and wealth. Upon this, the egalitarianism based on rights suggests no adjustments. Thus, the consequences of the free competitions in the market could only be the fact that opportunities are open to talents, so that the distribution of resources and interests would benefit the elites. Consequently, this formal egalitarianism would likely ends in very unequal consequences. However, for Nozick, inequality is only unfortunate not unjust. So, from the perspective of this formal egalitarianism, the"difference principle"would violate the rights of those people with better natural endowments by giving the"least-advantaged"a priory consideration. Viewed from this perspective, enforcing"difference principle"is to enforce the better endowed to work for the worse endowed, which equals to levying poll tax upon the better endowed.Still, Nozick criticized, that Rawls put all people's value down to such"external factors"as natural endowments and social cultural conditions, which negates people's autonomy, the ability and responsibility to chose, which also belittled people's dignity. Nozick's critique is relevant, as Rawls underestimated the relation between people's subjective efforts and their wealth and status, which is a serious flaw in his theory. Nozick's critique inspired Dworkin, who gave great considerations upon personal choice and responsibility, and developed it into an important individualist principle of ethics: principle of personal responsibility.Chapter Three, would be dealing with Dworkin's response to the relation between liberty and equality. Among neo-liberalist Dworkin is the one who gave a systematic description upon the relation between the two important political values, and he is also the one having a special perspective on this issue. For Dworkin, there are no conflicts between freedom and equality, and even freedom consist a rival of equality, equality is always superior. And he clearly pointed out that, he is not discussing liberty on the large, he is only dealing with the relation between liberty and distributive equality. As believed by Dworkin, the best perspective for distributive equality is"equality of resources", thus, he is discussing the relation between liberty and equality in the framework of"equality of resources". First of all, he established the supremacy of equality, and then found a position for liberty within his system. Different from other views that liberty and equality are independent political values that may by in the tension of potential conflict, in the framework of'equality of resources',freedom becomes one aspect of equality. And this is the position that Dworkin is possessing upon the relation between liberty and equality. However, in the further deduction, this perspective deviated from the original path: from the conclusion that freedom is one aspect of equality, freedom is not an independent value to the recognition that freedom equals to equality, and in the end, Dworkin had to admit that freedom is priory to equality which is apart from his original perspective. The retreat from the supremacy of equality to the priority of freedom reveals the liberal essence of Dworkin's theory.Chapter Four is a critique on the neo-liberalist view on the relation of liberty and equality. The liberty that neo-liberalist have in mind is Berlin's"negative liberty", which requires that individual freedom and rights should be from interference and compulsion, while equality, especially economic equality would surely be in conflict with some rights (especially property rights). So, the discussion upon the relationship between liberty and equality that started from"negative liberty"would necessarily expose the conflict between them. It is a dilemma to reconcile the two. And neo-liberalism has adopted a strategy of ranking them in priority. Certainly, the order they give is always that liberty is priory to equality.But the liberty's priority is on more than a theoretical confirmation of contemporary western liberal democratic institution. So it is not universal and absolute in itself, but relative to certain kind of historical environment. Moreover, the problem of priority itself is the out coming of historical and realistic environment. Thus it is a wrong way to exploit the mode of priority, other than socio-historical practice, to deal with the relationship between liberty and equality. Every political value should be carried out rationally when pursuing the social justice in idiographic historical condition. To keep the stability of society, every political value should be pursued within their mutual balanced relationships.