Equality

• Would you like to own and operate a small business? Perhaps you don't want to be part of a large corporation, but your chances of success are severly limited under our current system of laws.
• Would you like to have great schools for your kids? It doesn't look like our current school systems can do that.
• Would like to have a medical system you can afford without having to resort to huge insurance companies? Perhaps your elected representatives don't see it that way.
• Would you like to see yourself or some people you know free themselves from public assistance? It is very difficult to do under our current welfare system.

What is needed in each of these issues? Equal Opportunity!

Equality
Many of us here in the United States like to think of ourselves not as a ‘nation of equals’, but as a nation of ‘equal opportunity’ for all citizens. The concept of a nation of equals is a socialist ideal which is not only impossible to sustain, but it is difficult to imagine a more boring way to live.
It is within the realm of opportunity where equality is best exercised. When opportunities are equal our human differences can be expressed. Success in an ‘equal opportunity’ system depends on individual skill and drive. On the other hand, personal success in a ‘nation of equals’ system is discouraged. Laws and social pressures are in place to ensure that individual personalities are hammered out flat.
Unfortunately, beyond the slogan ‘a land of equal opportunity’, we haven’t put the idea of equal opportunity into practice very well. We fall short of the ideal in some very significant areas.
Most of us, when asked about equality, think things like racial equality or gender equality. That’s not surprising because we have some folks who are making quite a nice living beating those drums. So we have all heard about them over and over. The actor Morgan Freeman reportedly made a recent comment. He said if we stop talking about racial differences, the issue would go away. Freeman is right, the real issue isn’t racial and it isn't gender.
The real issue is about equalities that supercede issues like racial equality and gender equality. It’s about equalities that go right to the heart of who we are as Americans. There are fundamental challanges to opportunity that are not being addressed at all. It is those differences that lock many people into life styles they may never get beyond.
Two areas that we should be very concerned with are equal financial opportunity and equal representation in our government. We give lip service to these, but we don’t actually practice them.

Equal representation
It is a given in political campaigns that the better financed candidate will always win the office. If a candidate attracts wealthy backers, that candidate will win. So in a nation espousing equal representation it is really the wealthy that get represented. Less wealthy people can’t afford to donate significantly to political campaigns so their concerns don’t get represented very well – if at all. There are far fewer wealthy people than all other economic classes yet that class gets far greater representation in government. Hence, laws tend to favor them which, in turn, further limits the opportunities of others.

What can be done to achieve equal representation? Like most difficult questions, this one has a simple answer. We can come much closer to the ideal if we change the way political campaigns are financed. If political campaign contributions were limited to registered voters, and the contributed amounts were limited to no more than the annual per capita income (candidates similarly limited as well), a great step would be taken toward equal representation. Such a change would help ensure that the concerns of all our people would be represented equally. Such a change would also help to link the allegiance of elected officials to their entire constituency and not just to the more wealthy portions of it.

Equal Financial Opportunity
Equality of opportunity is severely limited because it is so much more expensive to be poor in this country than it is to be rich. A poor person or a small business pays more for goods and services than a rich person or a big business.

• Suppose a man wants shelter. The rich man can buy a house – live in it – sell it and possibly increase his wealth. A poor man may only have enough to rent a motel room one day at a time. The effect is the poor man may spend a great deal more money for a great deal less than the rich man and be left with even less opportunity to advance his condition.
• Suppose a business wants to sell a product. A big business may buy a large quantity of widgets and sell each of them at a very low price. A smaller ‘mom-and-pop’ business may only be able to buy a few widgets at a time. Their costs will be considerably higher per widget and they won’t be able to sell them at the same low price the big business can. The wholesaler may even refuse to sell them small quantities. Hence the small business can’t compete with the big business.

These are examples of unequal financial opportunities that we have come to accept as part of life or part of doing business. The concept of capitalism gets tainted when the wealthy have vastly more opportunity than the poor. Yet capitalism doesn’t have to be like that! A few simple changes in the way we conduct business can greatly enhance the equality of opportunities for a much larger portion of our citizenry.

Just as other discriminatory or predatory business practices are regulated, practices such as volume discounting and special agreements and arrangements between businesses could be disallowed. Some examples of these concepts are:

• If a widget sells for one dollar, a thousand widgets would sell for one thousand dollars.
• If a dollar can be borrowed for ten cents, then a thousand dollars can be borrowed for one hundred dollars.

If volume discounts were illegal the small business or poorer individual would have the same opportunity for access to goods and services as the large business or wealthy individual.

• If a company offers an item for sale, it must sell that item equally to anyone who wishes to buy it.
• If a company offers an item for sale, it must sell it at the same price to anyone who wishes to buy it.
• If a company offers an item for sale, it must sell it without restrictions on quantity or quality to anyone who wishes to buy it.

When restrictive arrangements between companies and individuals are removed all business and individuals have equal opportunities for access to goods and services. Special deals would be allowed only when they would not restrict or limit opportunities of others.
Many of the potential evils of capitalism are reduced or eliminated when businesses are regulated in ways that protected equal opportunities of all citizens. Many problems in our nation would simply disappear if all citizens were represented by our lawmakers.
These issues are of far greater significance than the issues that are normally brought to our attention. These issues are fundamental to equal opportunity.
It doesn't tax one's imagination to see that our medical, education, and legal systems would be far more user friendly if our elected office holders represented the citizenry more than deep-pocketed institutions.
It doesn't tax one's imagination to see that many more small businesses could succeed if they were able to compete on an even financial footing with giant corporations.