Atlas Summit 2016 at FreedomFest

Is equality a social value? Political equality—equality before the law—is an important value, required by the universal principles of individual rights. Laws should be applied uniformly to everyone. Income equality, however, is not a value; individuals should be free to pursue and to keep what they have gained through production and trade in the market. Such freedom is also incompatible with equality of opportunity as a political goal.Racial, ethnic, and sexual equality is a moral value, based on respect for individuals as individuals. It is not a value if conceived in collectivist terms, as in contemporary “identity politics.” And in any case it is not a political value that should be enforced coercively.