CHAPTER XV
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
Having now dealt with two of those three ideas or conceptions which, though not necessarily connected with the specific doctrines of socialism, owe much of their present diffusion to the activity of socialistic preachers—that is to say, the idea, purely statistical, that labour, as contrasted with the directive ability of it, actually produces much more than it gets, and the further idea that the many could ameliorate their own position by appropriating the interest now received by the few; having dealt with these two ideas, it remains for us to consider the third—namely, that which is generally suggested by the formula Equality of Opportunity, or, more particularly (for this is what concerns us here), equality of opportunity in the domain of economic production.
We must start with recollecting that if the wealth of a country depends mainly, as we have here seen that it does, on the efforts of those of its citizens whose industrial talent is the greatest, the more effectively all such talent is provided with an opportunity of exerting itself the greater will the wealth and prosperity of that country be. In other words, if potential talent is to be actualised, opportunity is as needful for its exercise as is the stimulus of a proportionate reward. That economic opportunity ought, therefore, to be equalised, so far as possible, is, as an abstract principle, too obvious to need demonstration. But abstract principles are useless till we apply them to a concrete world; and when we apply our abstract doctrine of opportunity to the complex facts of society and human nature, a principle so simple in theory will undergo as many modifications as a film of level water will if we spill it over an uneven surface.
The first fact which will confront us, when we come down from theory to facts, is one which could not be more forcibly emphasised than it has been by a socialistic writer,[25] whose utterances were quoted in one of our previous chapters. This is the fact that, in respect of their powers of production, just as of most others, human beings are in the highest degree unequal. They are unequal in intellect and imagination. More especially they are unequal in energy, alertness, executive capacity, initiative and in what we may describe generally as practical driving force. Such being the case, then, if it could actually be brought about that every individual at a given period of his life should start with economic opportunities identical with those of his contemporaries, each generation would be like horses chosen at haphazard, and started at the same instant to struggle over the same course in the direction of a common winning-post. And what would be the result? A few individuals would be out of sight in a moment; the mass at various distances would be struggling far behind them, and a large residuum would have been blown before it had advanced a furlong. Thus, by making men's adventitious opportunities equal, we should no more equalise the result for the sake of which the opportunities were demanded than we should give every cab-horse in London a chance of winning the Derby by allowing it on Derby Day to go plodding over the course at Epsom. On the contrary, by inducing all to contemplate the same kind of success, we should be multiplying the sense of failure and dooming the majority to a gratuitous discontent with positions in which they might have taken a pride had they not learned to look beyond them.
And now, from this fact, to which we shall come back presently, let us turn to the question of how, and in what respects, equality of opportunity is in practical life attainable.
The most obvious manner in which an approach to such equality can be made is by an equalisation of opportunities for education in early life, or, in other words, by a similar course of schooling, a similar access to books, and similar leisure for studying them. But even here, at this preliminary stage, we shall find that the equality of opportunity is to a large extent illusory. Let us suppose that there are two boys, equal in general intelligence, and unequal only in their powers of mental concentration, who start their study of German side by side in the same class-room. One boy, in the course of a year or so, will be able to read German books almost as easily as books in his own language, while the other will hardly be able to guess the drift of a sentence without laborious reference to his hated grammar and dictionary. Now, when once a situation such as this has arisen, the opportunities of the two boys have ceased to be equal any longer. The one has placed himself at an indefinite advantage over the other, which is quite distinct from the superiority originally inherent in himself. Among the educational opportunities which reformers desire to equalise, one of the chief is that of access to adequate libraries; and it is, they say, in this respect more perhaps than any other that the rich man has at present an unfair advantage over the poor. It is virtually this precise advantage that will now be in possession of the boy who has thus far outstripped his classmate. In his mastery of German he has a key to a vast literature—a key which the other has not. He is now like a rich man with an illimitable library of his own, while the other by comparison is like a poor man who can get at no books at all. Thus if opportunity, in its most fundamental form, were equalised for all boys, no matter how completely, the equality would be only momentary. It would begin to disappear by the end of the first few months, not because the boys would still, as they did at starting, be bringing to their tasks intrinsically unequal faculties, but because some of them would have already monopolised the aid of an adventitious knowledge by which the practical efficiency of their natural faculties would be multiplied.
But education is merely a preliminary to the actual business of life. Let us pass on to the case of our equally educated youths when they enter on the practical business of making their own fortunes. What kind of equal opportunity can be possibly provided for them now?
Since socialists are the reformers who, in dealing with objects aimed at, are least apt to be daunted by practical difficulties, let us see how equality of opportunity in business life is conceived of and described by them. The general contention of socialists in this respect is, says one of their best-known American spokesmen,[26] "that the fact that capital is now in the hands of private persons gives them an unfair advantage over those who own nothing," for capital consists of the implements of advantageous production; and socialists, he says, would secure an equality of industrial opportunity for all by "vesting the ownership of the means of production in the state"; the result of which procedure would, he goes on, be this: "that every one would have his own canoe, and it would be up to each to do his own paddling."