A humane proposal for eradicating all inequalities

by Zoya Ulianova Kobapotskaya

Achieving real equality has always been the dream of the noblest, best intended people, of every generation, spearheaded by progressive philosophers, writers, poets, artists, and educators. Yet, despite many inspiring proposals and earnest efforts to put them into practice, we are not any closer to a workable solution today than at any time since the word Égalité inspired the French revolutionaries. I have pondered long and hard on the reasons for this failure and arrived at a solution—one which is both possible and necessary. But, before revealing its shocking simplicity, I would like to walk you through the arguments that have led me to it.

With its motto, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” to which, in the original formulation, “ou la Mort” (or death) was prophetically added, the French Revolution placed Égalité at the center of its political demands. But, alas, it envisioned only a limited version of it, “equality under the law,” as a means to get rid of the privileges enjoyed by the nobility and clergy, to the benefit of the rising bourgeoisie. The American revolution had an even more limited scope. The Declaration of Independence proclaims, farcically, that “all men are created equal.” Yet women and men are thrown into this world at random, in fundamentally unequal circumstances. Both Revolutions erred greatly by denying that private property – which they enshrined as a human right – and the nefarious role of nuclear families, produce, ultimately, the very privileges that the French revolutionaries decried.

We owe to the Communist Manifesto the first clear analysis of the pernicious effects of both private property and bourgeois families, which act as tools for the rich to acquire power over the poor. By calling for a dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than a fake democratic form of government, Marx and Engels also understood that Égalité must have preeminence over Liberté, while Fraternité, a vague word to start with, was to be limited, appropriately, to the context of class struggle. Though on target as far as private property is concerned, they were less than half right on families. They were right to call for communal education of children to avoid the selfish interest that people have in the welfare of their own children. Yet they called for “free marriage,” by which they meant the “totally voluntary relationship between a man and woman, about which society has nothing to say.” In this they completely ignored the powerful effect this type of freedom of association has on furthering inequality. 

This mistake turned out to have disastrous consequences on how their ideas were implemented by communist parties in the 20th century. The Achilles heel of Soviet communism was the emergence of a new class, the Party nomenklatura - a large body of professionals and apparatchiks who enjoyed enormous privileges and power, both of which could be passed down in families. This was a fatal failure of communist regimes for, though their ideology boasted about their ability to create the “New Man,” they were not able to break the petty selfishness with which people cling to their privileges and possessions, in particular their visceral attachment to their biological children. Nothing illustrates this failure better than the ability of the old communist elite to become the multimillionaire class of post-communist societies.  The New Man turned out to be a mirror image of the old.

To produce a truly egalitarian society, Communism made an unprecedented attempt to engineer the New Man by banning private property, attempting to provide equalitarian education for all children and pursuing a 24/7 propaganda campaign to disrupt the false idols of humanity: acquisitiveness, tribalism, and religion. When, as expected, people resisted, communists had to resort to force, producing upwards of 100 million victims in the process. Breaking eggs to produce an omelet might have been justified had the promised omelet been delivered. But instead, Communism failed miserably wherever it held power and, in the wake of its demise, we are facing the resurgence of the same old idols together with the extreme forms of inequality that they invariably produce.

Despite the abject failure of the Marxist project everywhere where it was applied, its ghost continues to haunt us. As a perfect illustration of Marx’s observation that “History repeats first as tragedy and then as farce,” what passes today as Social Justice Theory (SJT)  is a mishmash of half-baked ideas which, in the rare cases when they seem coherent, simply replace distinctions of class of the classical Marxism with those based on race, skin color, sex, gender, sexual preferences and other, ever expanding, identities, all bound together by “intersectionality,”  as well as hatred of capitalism, toxic masculinity and Western civilization in general. According to this modern version of Social Justice, also known by the name of “wokism,” all unequal group outcomes in any spheres of life are a manifestation of racism, sexism, ableism, and various other “-isms” requiring massive bureaucratic interventions to cure them. Their solution to the problem of inequality is not too far from Kurt Vonnegut’s farcical dystopia “Harrison Bergeron” in which all possible discrepancies in intelligence, talent, natural beauty, etc. are to be regulated by the “United States Handicapper General” - an institution created to make sure to equitably handicap all those unfairly endowed by Nature:

“The Year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General”.

This brings us to our main point: the role played by inborn individual variations in fostering inequalities.  Multiple studies based on separated twins and adoptions have shown that, in fact, almost every aspect of personality, including intelligence and even the ability to view the world through a happy lens — somewhere between 40% and 80%—is genetically determined. 

Classical Marxism failed to notice this powerful source of inequality due to genetic inheritance. Both Marx¹ and Engels, were however aware of the work of Darwin, which they greatly admired, and viewed as a confirmation of their own dialectical materialist understanding of history. But they missed the darker implications of Darwinism on the origin of societal inequalities and, more importantly, failed to take notice of the enormous implications of Mendel's work on the principles of genetic inheritance. 

Though today’s progressives are adamant about disregarding genetic variations as a source of inequality, this was not always so. Progressive luminaries embraced, often enthusiastically, eugenic policies to “improve” the genetic stock of humanity. By eliminating defective physical characteristics, low IQ’s, or what they deemed as “deviant” social behaviors through sterilization, anti-miscegenation laws, or outright physical elimination, progressives were hoping to ultimately reduce natural inequalities. Reading statements² made by some of the most famous among them, one can be forgiven for having the uncomfortable thought that the only real difference between the policies they were supporting and the exterminating ones of Nazi Germany concerned disagreements on what is meant by unfavorable characteristics and the degree of determination in carrying out these policies. 

The efforts to produce a more egalitarian society through eugenics were all but abandoned when this uncomfortable connection was made clear in the wake of World War II. Yet irresponsible calls to reconsider positive eugenics to improve the genetic stock of humanity are being heard again. Thus, the well-known “New Atheist” R. Dawkins, could recently ask “If you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?”  

To summarize: there are three main sources of inequality: private property, nuclear families, and genetic variation among people. There is no solution to the problem of inequality which does not consider all three. In search of a true, systemic solution to the problem we need to start by making it clear that Liberté and Égalité are incompatible with each other, to stop pretending that we are equally in favor of both and to instead take a firm, uncompromising stand for the latter against the former. The issue is not whether we should use authoritarian methods to enforce equality as they are, of course, necessary, but rather to find the most effective and humane procedures to pursue that goal. Methods to enforce equality by artificial bureaucratic decrees, such as those mocked by Vonnegut, or currently pushed by the SJT commissars, are necessarily bound to fail miserably, in the same way the old communist methods have failed, because they only address the symptoms rather than the underlying disease. Any results obtained in this fashion are necessarily short-lived: they rapidly disappear once the bureaucratic enforcement tools are eased.

We need to also admit that there can be no such thing as an acceptable degree of inequality.

If Equality is, as we hold to be true, the most fundamental human right, no limitation of it can be acceptable. People who perceive themselves at a disadvantage will necessarily invoke this universal human right to equality to call for the eradication of whatever appears as a limitation of it. On what principle could we then reject such demands?  On what basis could boundaries between states be justified, given that they greatly contribute to inequalities between people who just happen to be born on different sides? More broadly, any type of boundaries, such as those inherent to religious or civic organizations, that separate people into those in and those out are potential breeders of inequalities. The only stable solution to the problem of inequality is full, unlimited, equality.

With all this in mind, it is time to disclose my solution for the most humane proposal to eradicate inequality. It is truly the most humane in that all other known solutions, as history has shown, require policies to eliminate not only the privileges of individuals unfairly favored by nature and fortune, but the individuals themselves.³

My proposal, which does not require the extermination or sterilization of anybody, or at most very few, is based on a communist system of government, not unlike that of the early Soviet Stalinist state, in which, in addition to the abolishment of private property and total control of education and employment opportunities, the structure of families and the genetic variations of individuals are also rigorously controlled. This new function of the State would be exercised through the creation of a family planning entity - allow me to call it the Department of True Love - which would ban conception based on free choice and instead compel men and women to procreate according to the optimal way to produce equality among their progenitors, thus eliminating all, or most, of the natural individual differences among people. This can be implemented by creating a set of metrics by which to evaluate the most important characteristics of an individual such as intelligence, race, height, weight, physical strength, ability to be happy, level of depression, emotional intelligence, ambition, or various genetic handicaps such genetic diseases, hearing or vision loss or something as basic as hair loss. Mathematical algorithms, implemented by powerful computers, can then calculate the best possible match between women and men to produce perfect averages. Thus, for example, a woman with an IQ score of 120 would be matched with a man who scores 80 to hopefully produce progeny with an average close to 100. The same could be done with respect to height, weight, etc. To avoid the problem that some people have an unfair advantage based on how they look, a national standard of beauty, or lack of it, could be devised which would guide the algorithms to produce progeny approaching the mean. People with musical or artistic talent would be matched with those who have an obvious deficiency in that regard. Some people may protest that matching persons with an IQ of 120 and 80 does not necessarily lead to progeny with an IQ of 100. It is, however, reasonable to believe that after a certain number of iterations of the program, all children will have, statistically, the same IQ, same height, weight, looks, etc. Advances in genetic engineering should not be discarded if they show promise of curing remaining discrepancies. Needless to say, whiteness, that racial characteristic so often deplored today, will disappear together with blackness to forge a truly post-racial society.

Characteristics such as predisposition to be happy or depressed, level of energy, emotional intelligence, and ambition, which are harder to quantify and match, might produce unsatisfactory results in the first few rounds of the project. More research into understanding the causes of these variations would be needed.  More research will also be needed to eliminate all substantial differences between men and women which, alas, my proposal cannot, in principle, produce.⁴ It is unsustainable in the long run that women have higher IQ and men are physically stronger.⁵

The state would use metrics to evaluate all girls and boys until the age of 18, when their personal characteristics stabilize, and announce the optimal matching results upon high school graduation. The officially announced couples would then be required to have children by the age of 25, to make sure that the children are born as healthy as possible. Children with genetic disease or serious malformations would, of course, be aborted. If some of these rigorously selected couples refused to partner with each other, they would be required to donate their gametes to the state for artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and gestation by surrogate mothers. The children born by this process would then be raised by the State, and the recalcitrant parents would receive an appropriate punishment.

Complete banning of nuclear families may in theory be the best option to avoid the unfair advantages offered by loving and caring families to their children, to the disadvantage of those who are not so blessed. But I firmly believe that this solution is inhumane.  I may be old-fashioned, but I do think that, beyond material goods, people need emotional and sexual intimacy to feel fulfilled and, whether we like it or not, married couples are the best way to provide both. 

All children, however, should be entirely educated by the State and none would be allowed to outshine the others. Free love will be banned, the transgressors punished, and any child conceived by a mating not sanctioned by the State will be automatically aborted. Any type of genetic selection, except those for enhancing equality or for strictly medical conditions, will also be banned. All artificial boundaries between states should be abolished and any type of civic organizations, relics of a liberal past, which include some while excluding others, should be gradually eased out of existence. Climate regional variations, which unfairly provide advantages to those born in temperate, mild, climates to the detriment of those who are not, will have to be also considered, compensating, somehow, those unfairly born in harsh climates.

No doubt there will be resistance. Most people, not just those we deem deplorable, cling to their selfish notions of freedom to control their choices, unable to understand and sacrifice for the common good. That resistance will have to be broken, as humanly (but firmly) as possible. Unlike in the previous attempts by communist states to eradicate class inequalities, the omelet will be irreversible, that is, once the progenitors become more and more alike, the possibilities to get unfair advantages based on personal characteristics will become more and more limited.

Once true communism is achieved, that is a perfectly equalitarian society where nobody has an unfair advantage over anybody else, some of these authoritarian methods could be gradually eased out, as they will no longer be necessary. Full Equality will thus allow freedom, True Freedom, to flourish and, in a true dialectic synthesis, they will fuse together to guarantee an ideal, socially just society - that elusive dream of all bien-pensants of the World. Yes we can! Against all odds, we can and shall overcome.

Isaiah’s prophecy, “The wolf shall live with the lamb,” will become reality as there will no longer be any meaningful distinction between the two; love and everlasting peace will finally reign in the Land.

1. As illustrated by his famous “From each according to their abilities to each according to his needs’’, Marx was in fact willing to accept the inevitable inequalities generated by individual variations.  As the slogan suggests, he thought, wrongly as it turned out, that these could be alleviated by bureaucratic, redistributionist policies.

2. Thus the beloved Helen Keller could write that allowing a “defective” child to die was simply a “weeding of the human garden that shows a sincere love of true life.” The much admired writer George Bernard Shaw, somebody with perfect socialist credentials and an admirer of Stalinist Soviet Union, wrote “A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them,” and “If you can’t justify your existence, if you’re not pulling your weight, and since you won’t, if you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself”. Strong sentiments in favor of eugenics were expressed by T. Roosevelt, W. Wilson, H. G. Wells, A. Huxley, etc. The great economist J.M. Keynes remarked that eugenics is “the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists”. A. G. Bell, the inventor of the telephone, suggested that deaf people be forbidden to intermarry for fear that they would have deaf children.

3. Though limited versions of this approach were tried in all communist countries, there is no better example of such an extermination policy than that pursued by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. And, alas, that experiment did not end very well either.

4. Recent advances in understanding and promoting gender fluidity point in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.

5. It is unacceptable that a transgender woman, born male, can continue to have such obvious competitive, athletic, advantages over all other conventional women as, manifestly, is the case today.