égalitarianism

Since redistribution in real life can never be of the distortionless type, égalitarianism will not (and should not) be carried all the way.

Although all the developing countries are pledged to égalitarianism, perhaps they feel that at this moment, and for a long time to come, their real need is for the training of leaders or an intellectual élite.

Other groups envisage societies based on various forms of socialism and égalitarianism, but with constraints on consumption through strong government intervention in production and in resource allocation.

Stephen believed (as I do) that the radical nationalist tradition contains much that is admirable — and that it has been our dominant nationalist ideology, alone unconfused by British loyalties. But I can now see that the nest of radical Australian historians hatched by Manning Clark at Melboume after the War carried an inbuilt self-destruct mechanism: not just ‘bourgeois consciousness’, but the contradiction between égalitarianism and that other convict bequest: love of liberty.

In the face of such phenomena, justice demands protection against bogus and thoughtless égalitarianism. The legal claim, conceding the particularity of every member of a political community, constitutes a bulwark against the pressures of public sentiment and the unpredictable vicissitudes of dominant opinion.