Equality of Opportunitiy and Democracy Alejandro Sahuí Universidad Autónoma de Campeche México

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1 Equality of Opportunitiy and Democracy Alejandro Sahuí Universidad Autónoma de Campeche México Abstract: This paper tries to explain the weak commitment that institutions of representative and liberal democracies demonstrate about substantive equality and the ambiguity in the ethos of the citizens living in these regimes. I will argue that it is not clear to the public what equality means as a normative or moral ideal, and that we have formed our relationships and political, economic and social institutions based on the idea of equality of opportunity and the notion of merit it conveys. Without enough criticism it has been equated democracy with meritocracy. Despite beliefs to the contrary, at the end this solution is not egalitarian at all; it is aristocratic. The egalitarian ideal postulates that the dignity derives from the human condition and is not negotiable. It involves the universal attribution of rights independently of the behavior and personal identity, and that rights are apt to subvert any order or social system intended to be immovable. Introduction. Pierre Rosanvallon has thought about democracy as a "society of equals". He recalls Alexis de Tocqueville's idea that equality in democracy is not only formal, because it demands a certain equivalence in the material conditions of life. Democracy in this sense has to do with the rejection of an aristocratic universe, with the criticism of the privileges of hierarchical societies. His idea of equality denotes a form of social relationship in which no one is dominated by another, nor is dependent. Therefore equality promotes people's autonomy. But in its political sense, autonomy only becomes relevant when connotes capacity of agency; that is, when people can act in accordance with their interests, values and goals. The kind of social relationships has impact therefore in the degree of freedom of the people. So much so that the wider use of the term "slavery" in European societies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, recalls Rosanvallon, had to do with dependency situations considered unbearable and immutable, and only secondarily with the regime of legal economic servitude. Giovanni Sartori also believes that from its revolutionary origins, French or American, the democratic ideal prefigures a particular ethos of like-minded individuals through which it aims to organize cooperation institutions and political coexistence. The resulting order would henceforth proscribe any attribution of prestige, authority, command or hierarchy based on alleged static orders. The existence of states of everlasting things would be an 1

2 indicative as to the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of freedom in a society. If those freedoms are defined at least in the negative sense of lack of determination, or positive, as opening to an open and contingente- future, then the inconmovilidad of a social order would reveal some kind of unjustified constraint. According to Sartori the meaning of social democracy avisorado by Tocqueville must not be understood as the opposite of a regime of oppressive government or tyranny, but of aristocracy: "Therefore, in the original sense of the term, the 'social democracy' reveals a company whose ethos requires its members viewed and treated as socially equal". In case of accepted social distinctions, these could only be based on the common good, in accordance with proclaimed by the first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen of While it is true that democratic regimes through the legal system subverted the structures of inequality among people by building category of citizenship, other social systems such as economy or culture for example, remained unchanged. Precisely the admiration that Tocqueville showed towards democracy of the United States of America was influenced by the greater equality or similarity between the inhabitants of that country with respect to France. The more equitable treatment of individuals each other can be read as a logic result of a new society without ancient structures of political domination, without huge differences in wealth, and a great religious and cultural homogeneity. In this text I intend to clarify the kind of guidelines, principles and criteria underlying the democratic ethos to reveal whether indeed are the same that support the institutions of the current democratic regimes. I am particularly interested in finding out to what extent and how it was included the value of equality in the model of representative and liberal democracy prevailing, to know what is reasonable to expect of their performance and yields. My hypothesis is that there are not many reasons to be optimistic in the pretension to close the huge gaps of inequality of socioeconomic conditions by the bodies of representative democracy in its current version. The main reason is because the ethos that its rules transmit is really meritocratic and not egalitarian stricto sensu. By this "current" version of democracy I mean the one that has been popularized under the label of "competitive theory of democracy" by Joseph Schumpeter. It is not difficult to see 2

3 the affinity with the notion of polyarchy proposed by Robert Dahl to characterize existing representative democracies. Democratic politics translates into a contest between parties and groups plural trying to position their agents or interests in public binding decisions. Regardless of their identity or status each and every one of the members of the political community are recognized as equal and endowed with an identical instrument-vote- to communicate their claims. Their votes can not be prejudged. They must be aggregated and counted with the same weight. Strict adherence to the rules of competition ensure the merit of the winners and proposals that are presented. Although apparently the notion of merit suggests an open race to equality of opportunities, here it will be argued that the dynamics of a system built under its guidance has an almost natural tendency to enshrine inequality between people and groups that can not be justified, because it derived from random or accidental causes such as the provision of talents, family heritage, gender, race, age, etc. Ossification of old and new hierarchies is a predictable result of a system of rules whose main mission is organizing the competition for positions of authority, as well as social goods, wealth and benefits from cooperation. The text is divided into three sections. In the first one it is exposed some elements of ideal of equality that contributed to the formation of the democratic ethos and that undermined the foundations of monarchical government schemes and hierarchical aristocratic society. In the second part it shows that at the very beginning of the equality's ideal arose an ambiguity or tension within it, that explains some of the inegalitarian practical consequences that text complaint. This ambiguity is discussed through the critique of the notion of equal opportunity. This notion has an enormous prestige in public discourse because it suggests the image of an open race for all people, regardless of identity, sex or condition. Under these terms, in a democracy, unlike the tyrannies and aristocratic societies, anyone could in principle access to offices and positions of authority, choose their leaders and put their interests compete against the rest. However, it is suggested that despite this prestige, equal opportunities does not reflect the egalitarian ideal that must prevail in democracy, but a meritocratic policy whose normative basis are very far from clear. In the third part it is argued that if in democracy people should recognize each other as subjects with equal estimation, and if this should have some meaning or practical impact in the design of their institutions, therefore opportunities and merit are not the best criteria to judge the quality of a democratic regime. Instead, it is proposed that the human 3

4 rights approach is a better candidate for this purpose because it assumes the equal dignity of all people. 1. About the democratic ethos and the value of equality. As stated before, following Tcoqueville, Rosanvallon and Sartori have argued that the idea of community of citizens took hold in North America before France mainly due to their different socioeconomic structure. In the United States there was a common feeling of equality derived from the more homogeneous nature of their groups, socially, economically, culturally and religiously speaking. In France, by contrast, social differences were pronounced and, being an older society, they were also more entrenched. The stratified and hierarchical order was perceived as immovable. Their beneficiaries tended to consider themselves as a different kind of men. The nobles were convinced that his qualities were innate and which were hereditarily transmitted by their lineage. Since the differences between people were understood as intrinsic, it was also justified the hierarchical composition of the social world. Because of this their attitudes and beliefs were not an imposture, strictly speaking, because they always came to be confirmed with the hard facts of reality. The worst maybe, however, was that this vertical image of the world was effectively transmitted to the common people, the "commoners" and "villains" that ended almost always also adjust their ideas and behaviors to positive values of the time. Thomas Piketty shows with the example of the novels of Jane Austen and Honore de Balzac, aspects of the social imaginary, of the "intuitive knowledge" of people that reflected in that time the deep structure of inequalities and its implications in daily life. This intimate knowledge, but widely shared by ordinary people, assumed the influence of the hierarchy of wealth in the universe of everyday life, their secret barriers, byways, and sometimes discovered some of their shortcuts. Thus carried on individuals to organize and develop life strategies; to build relationships and forge alliances; and to regulate their conceptions of justice, and also about shame and unworth. In this text the term "ethos" will be used in the somewhat vague and imprecise sense, but fairly understandable that projects a knowledge domain general in a society and in a 4

5 specific context, and that rules both hidden motives and public discourse of people. Regarding the issue of inequality and democracy, the ethos would be the plot of attitudes, speeches and behaviors that operate as the substrate of moral and political justifications about the origins, structure and dynamics of relationships between individuals and groups. When such normative assumptions are not made explicit the practices and social and political institutions can lead to unexpected and inhospitable places. To the extent that the inequality of condition among people was "justified" before these two political revolutions, as Rosanvallon says, we assume that the liberal democratic movement was a trigger for the crisis of values of hierarchical and aristocratic societies, in denouncing the bases its asymmetric structures. The author refers to the importance of equality in the ideology of the French Revolution. He quotes Pierre-Louis Roederer, an important, moderate, and not radical member of the Constituent Assembly: "The first reason for the revolution was the impatience about inequalities". Nevertheless, because of revolution was leaded by the bourgeois class, who had a level of wellbeing that guaranteed them a high degree of independence from necessities, the egalitarian ideal was oriented to move the fixed barriers or entry charges to public and social positions of prestige. Such barriers could come from legal provisions or ancestral traditions, but in any case were against the interest of the group more capable and willing to compete for those positions and positions. Their motives were to give to all people the equality of opportunities to participate in competition for access to the structures of existing political, social, economic or cultural authority, and not so much to criticize them or change them. In bourgeois ideology, injustice of class society consisted on closure and rigidity of civil and professional positions which prevented social mobility, not only vertically but also horizontal. Above all, as it is said, it was added insult to injury by "arrogance" and the "frivolous affectation of courtesy" of their beneficiaries. However, the idea of equality in the specific sense of "promoting respect, consideration for others, demanding to recognize the unique value of every human being" has always served as a strictly moral duty. As such, it has not contributed effectively to shape political, social and economic institutions, which usually function outside its tenets. These 5

6 institutions, it appears, have assumed as an organizing principle, the merit and the social utility. Piketty, for example, insists on this tenor that inequality is not necessarily bad in itself, because he believes the central issue is whether it is justified or not, if you have reason to be. From his point of view, inequality could be legitimately founded on the common good, in accordance with proclaimed by the first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of Even John Rawls, author of the most consistent conception of political justice of the twentieth century, defended the well known "difference principle" which means that inequality could be justified if it let positions be open to equal opportunities, and simultaneously works in favor of the most disfavoured individuals. In this light it is understood that it is justifiable to recognize privileges, degrees or honors to people if they contribute prominently to the collective welfare of people who live in very bad conditions. In fact, it seems reasonable to assume that such distinctions would be explained within dynamics incentives thanks to which people tend to put greater efforts in achieving their goals. The incentive structure explains in an instrumental sense the design and functioning of practices, institutions and conventions that a given society considers useful or valuable, but does not justify them in a moral sense. One could imagine the disastrous effect of suppressing the incentive system oriented to recognize or reward effort, dedication, performance or personal achievements. Work, school, sports; all of them classify people for the sake of efficiency, productivity and competitiveness. Undoubtedly, these instrumental values are essential for societies in order to achieve their collective goals. In any case, we should be emphatic that the special recognition to a person or group based on incentives comes from the idea of merit, whose bases are far from clear and that, no matter the way you look at it, does not seem to be supported on equality idea in a substantive sense. Equality is intrinsically related to dignity as an universal value shared by all people. And because of this, we must provide the same respect and consideration to each individual without consider their circunstantial contribution to society. 6

7 We suggest that meritocracy legitimizes and gives an alibi to the most talented or strong, those who have more resources, and rarely, as is often believed, to those who do their best effort. And also, meritocracy tends to discipline people, because those things people value as object of merit commonly are the most functional to a particular community. This could be demonstrated in most situations where merit is distributed. School and work, for example, do reward children, young or "good" employees, and not to those which exhibit restless intelligence, leadership or creativity. The selection in these areas through the grading system, reward the adjusting to school or labor standards, and not exactly as intended, intelligence and competitiveness. School or employment, following our examples, do not have to democratize themselves, if by that is meant that everyone should participate in decisions about the content of teaching and school management, in the first case; or the management of resources and finances of a company. In certain contexts democracy can be conceived as an important mean, although subordinate and instrumental, to specific publicly agreed purposes. 2. The ambiguity in the ideal of equal opportunities. As already mentioned, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries France was a much more unequal than the United States of America society. According to Pierre Rosanvallon, school was considered after the revolution one of the main instruments of social equality. Through education it was expected to create new forms of social relationships between people. However, at denouncing the privileges, education also proposed to dismantle the static hierarchical order and replace it by a new dinamic order, still hierachical, but able to admit the upward social movility of any individual or group. That is, a new order disposed to the circulation of elites. At the core of the revolutionary educational project, the desire for distinction was soon established. The entrenchment of inequalities caused that French people thought about equality connected especially to political sphere, not so much in social life. Thus, it was assumed that some inequalities between individuals were admisible. The sixth article of the 7

8 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 states: "All citizens, being equal in their eyes [of the law], they are equally admissible to all dignities, places and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents". At the time when it was intended to establish egalitarianism, there was a conservative reaction which attacked this ideal, on the grounds that it would cause a common state of conformity and mediocrity. In a tone that perhaps most people in contemporary democracies would subscribe Guizot wrote: "The characteristic of modern societies (democratic) 'explained in that sense- is to reject all artificial inequality and give free rein to natural inequalities". Then according to Rosanvallon it was incorporated at the very core of the educational project a restricted notion of equality as equality of opportunities. Ángel Puyol has written a devastating critique of the notion of equal opportunity which shows its relation with meritocracy, not with the egalitarianism that it claims to defend. While egalitarianism emphasizes that all are equal, meritocracy is oriented to find the best Its purpose is not to reduce social inequalities,but to find a way of legitimizing them. 3. Democratic Equality: from opportunities to rights. In what follows I will make a proposal about which can be an adequate conception of equaility in a democratic society. Is it about opportunities, results or something else? I sustain that in order to be effective the equalization in material conditions of life, it must be included directly into the internal mechanisms of democratic process, and not to be considered only at the beginnig or at the end of that process. That is, the democratic process and its main institutions should be re-constructed assuming at every moment that all individuals deserve the same respect and consideration. And this implies to transform the usual concepcion of individuals as simply voters, or contenders for political positions or public goods. 8

9 Democracy, as a regime, in its own institutional design, with each one of its rules, must be the guarantor instance of equal status amogn people in any sphere of life where it can exist domination and explotation relations. Democratic institutions would be the place of permanent equal opportunities, contrary to the idea that these opportunities should be placed at the beginning of life; at school or at work options, for example. Besides mandatory social and economic rights compliance, or universal political rights as the identical vote for all, it should be granted certain advantages in decision making procedures, and in instances of representation, to disfavoured groups. These groups can be identified when contrasting the disaggregated results of their performance in comparing them with the rest of community. With the proper use of statistical indicators it is possible to confirm certain patterns of discrimination against women, indigenous, elderly, youth, disabled, etc. On the human rights approach political process should be organized internally to close the inequality gaps, with a moral priority for those who stay in an unjustified disadvantage. Democratic regime should not be not be seen as competition to find the best candidate nor the most suitable proposal. Instead, its rules must empower and reverberate the claims of socially disadvantaged individuals, based on the idea of their moral and practical priority, and their epistemic relevance. Nobody reasonably expect that current rules in liberal and representative democracies may conduce to meet those claims of finding the best government or deciding the fairest policy. Democracy is not designed to satisfy these goals; and instead it tends to reflect interests and preferences of majorities or hegemonic elites. However, when its mechanism is set in motion, people tend to forget this, and they take for granted that democratic process products derive their intrinsic quality from the mere fact of having followed the rules of the game. The winning options are interpreted as intrinsically worthy and respectable. As Pierre Rosanvallon points out, merit has a "psychologically functional" character because it provides to competition winners a confortable fiction for sustaining their advantages. 9

10 My purpose is to criticize the logic and discourse of meritocratic competition underlying the design of political institutions of liberal representative democracy, and try to recuperate the revolutionary project of equality in order to be free from domination and explotation. I try to make visible and to give power to individuals and groups which are actually excluded from democratic proceedings, through legal instruments and guarantees that rule the competitive spirit of current representative democracies. Ferrajoli's contemporary constitutionalism conceives human rights as legal rules in favor of the weakest. We may probably think in installments in favor of certain under-represented groups; in redistricting; in limitations on private financing of campaigns or to access to media; in jurisdictional processes; or in recognition of right to civil disobedience or conscientious objection. The purpose is to understand the equalizing dimension of all these instruments. References Bordieu, Pierre, La distinción. Criterios y bases sociales del gusto, Madrid, Taurus, Cohen, Gerald A., Si eres igualitarista, cómo es que eres tan rico?, Barcelona, Paidós, Cohen, Gerald A., Rescuing Justice and Equality, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, Cohen, Gerald A., Why Not Socialism?, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, Dahl, Robert, On Political Equality, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, Ely, John Hart, Democracy and Distrust. A Theory of Judicial Review, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, Ferrajoli, Luigi, Derechos y garantías. La ley del más débil, Madrid, Trotta, Flores Dávila, Julia y Meyenberg, Yolanda, Ciudadanos y cultura de la democracia. Reglas, instituciones y valores de la democracia, México, IFE, González Casanova, Pablo, La democracia en México, México, Ediciones Era, Kelsen, Hans, Esencia y valor de la democracia. Forma del Estado y filosofía, México, Ediciones Coyoacán, Loaeza, Guadalupe, Los de arriba, México, Editorial de Bolsillo, López Guerra, Claudio, Democracy and Disenfranchisement. The Morality of Electoral Exclusions, New York, Oxford University Press,

11 Nussbaum, Martha C., Las mujeres y el desarrollo humano. El enfoque de las capacidades, Barcelona, Herder, Nussbaum, Martha C., Crear capacidades. Propuesta para el desarrollo humano, Barcelona, Paidós, O'Donnell, Guillermo, Democracy, Agency, and the State. Theory with Comparative Intent, New York, Oxford University Press, Oxfam, Gobernar para las élites. Secuestro democrático y desigualdad económica, Piketty, Thomas, El capital en el siglo XXI, México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2014 (Edición Kindle). PNUD, Informe Regional sobre Desarrollo Humano para América Latina Latina y el Caribe. Actuar sobre el futuro: romper la transmisión intergeneracional de la desigualdad, Puyol, Ángel, El sueño de la igualdad de oportunidades, Barcelona, Gedisa, Raphael, Ricardo, Mirreynato: la otra desigualdad, México, Editorial Planeta, Rawls, John, La justicia como equidad. Una reformulación, Barcelona, Paidós, Rodríguez Zepeda, Jesús, Iguales y diferentes: la discriminación y los retos de la democracia incluyente, México, Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación, Roemer, John E., Equality of Opportunity, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, Rosanvallon, Pierre, La sociedad de iguales, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2014 (Edición Kindle). Salazar Ugarte, Pedro, La democracia constitucional. Una radiografía teórica, México, FCE/UNAM, Sartori, Giovanni, Teoría de la democracia (2 vols.), Madrid, Alianza Editorial, Sartori, Giovvani, Qué es la democracia?, México, Taurus, 2012 (Edición Kindle) Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York, Routledge, Sen, Amartya, Equality of What?, The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, Stanford University, Sen, Amartya, Desarrollo y libertad, México, Planeta, Shapiro, Ian, Democratic Justice, Yale University Press, Tocqueville, Alexis de, La democracia en América (2 vols.), Madrid, Alianza Editorial, Waldron, Jeremy, Dignity, Rank and Rights, New York, Oxford University Press,