Jefferson and Vonnegut on Equality and more
In the essay “Equality: The Unknown Ideal”, Prof. Roderick T. Long notes:
The original draft of the Declaration [of Independence] highlights the importance of equality still more clearly. The final and better-known version states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
But what Jefferson originally [emphasis added - Brad] wrote was this:
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable: that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As far as I can tell, the wording was changed for stylistic reasons rather than substantive ones. The final draft does flow more smoothly. But the original draft is more philosophically precise.
I recommend reading Long’s essay in its entirety, but would like to here more briefly state my own take on the topic.
Libertarians don’t often stress the importance of equality because the concept has been so abused and distorted by the more statist factions among the left. From the concept of liberty that we are all entitled to based on equal inherent possession of human rights, the public discourse has been poisoned such that “equality” has come to signify the bureaucratic denial of rights in an attempt to force people to be equal in all respects. This sad state of the debate is lampooned nowhere more effectively, in my opinion, than in the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I believe that if market anarchism is to assume what I consider its proper role as the intellectual, revolutionary animating spirit of the left, displacing the remnants of Marxism (as I touched on here), that we must reclaim the banner of “Equality” and clarify its understanding. I say reclaim because equality was originally a libertarian value and market anarchism is today the most rigorous and principled iteration of libertarianism.
The genuinely revolutionary understanding of equality is not as a mandate for society to be administered a certain way. It is for society a reason to refuse to submit to forcible administration — because those who would presume to rule us are but our equals.
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