Life is unequal and unfair, affecting individual happiness in several ways. Our ability to thrive depends partly on understanding inequality and developing a moral framework to deal with it. This essay explores the nature of inequality and its impacts. It then suggests an approach to living well within an unequal world.

I have come to view inequality from two perspectives. The first is inequality in factors affecting achievement. These are the essential inputs affecting certain outcomes in life. These inputs include personality and cognitive abilities, character, the environment we are born into, and the opportunities available. The second perspective on inequality is on outcomes. Outcome inequality includes income, wealth, socioeconomic status, and health. Input inequality has an enormous impact on outcome inequality.

It is natural and reasonable to see inequality and feel it is unfair. But, we commonly avoid the issue because it is complex and seems beyond our control. However, we should not ignore it if we are to live a good life. Many individual life decisions affect inequality and its impact on us and society. Whether privileged, disadvantaged, or somewhere in between, we get up each day and face the reality of our unequal circumstances and those of the people around us.

I felt uneasy about the topic and had many questions. Is inequality always bad, or is it good in some circumstances? Should I feel guilty about my unearned advantages? What about the disadvantages and biases I faced? Does good fortune come with obligations? If so, what are they? What reasoned moral framework should I use to guide my thinking and actions regarding inequality? These questions affect well-being. Being happy and at peace is hard without a thorough understanding and philosophical approach to inequality.

Answering these questions requires defining inequality and understanding its causes and impacts on individuals and society. I have learned several things that now guide my response to inequality. These lessen my discomfort with the subject and help me decide how to act.

I set aside many significant factors affecting inequality for this discussion. Education, health, race, and sex, for example. These are important and perpetually debated topics. However, there is a strong consensus that society should, to some degree, reduce inequality of opportunity caused by these factors.

In most developed countries, primary and secondary education is free. This policy rests on the principle that everyone, regardless of their circumstances, should have the opportunity for a basic education. A person may decide not to learn but should have the chance to learn.

Similarly, most developed countries have some means to share the financial risk of treating diseases that affect some people but not others. The intention is to reduce health outcome inequality caused by economic circumstances.

Many policies exist to reduce employment, housing, and education discrimination related to conditions we don’t control. Sex and skin color should not bar someone from getting a job or buying a home. Despite substantial disagreement about how to achieve these goals, there is strong underlying support for the goals.

I set aside these factors to focus on two areas. One is the characteristics people are born with. This includes inherited differences such as cognitive ability, personality and psychological make-up, and physical abilities. The other is what we do with what we have. This includes character, ambition, hard work, and the development of innate abilities. Many of life’s benefits derive from these two factors.

The first step is understanding the nature of these factors and how they affect our lives. The next step is developing the conceptual framework for our engagement with these factors.

Individual Variation Leads to Inequality

People are born with innate physical, cognitive, and psychological differences. There is variation in intelligence, artistic ability, physical skills, political acumen, leadership skills, etc. The innate nature of these differences may seem obvious, but many believe that the social environment causes most of the variation. However, the evidence is overwhelming that individuals vary significantly on many powerful characteristics regardless of society’s influence and intervention.

Similarly, people differ in their character. We may be born predisposed toward certain aspects of character, such as risk-taking or conscientiousness. However, personal choice and environment also affect character. For example, some people have a much stronger desire to succeed and achieve than others. Some aspects of character, such as ambition and work ethic, are strongly linked to achievement and traditional success.

Variation in abilities and character is a primary cause of outcome inequality. This occurs because ability is highly prized and rewarded. Competent people disproportionately impact society. Most people are motivated to use their skills, abilities, drive, work ethic, etc, to achieve more. Their skills and abilities are valuable to society, and they take advantage of that to reap the material and status rewards. This has been the reality of human culture since the beginning of civilization. The elite have always had more power and influence in society. Material and status rewards have accompanied that power and influence.

There are many exceptions to the assumption that ability, innate and developed, is a significant factor in attaining elite status and its benefits. One can point to examples of people with limited ability and bad character becoming wealthy due to inherited power, criminal behavior, and sometimes just pure luck. However, the simple observation validates the premise that ability generally leads to success. One can work hard, have exceptional abilities, and achieve elite status by doing bad things. Criminal gang leaders must be exceptionally skilled to survive and rise to the top.

The Benefits of Human Variation

There are tremendous benefits from variation in innate and acquired human talents. These benefits are often overlooked when considering outcome inequality resulting from human variation.

Variation in ability benefits society when highly talented and motivated people make extraordinary contributions affecting others. All can benefit from the high achievements of a few.

There are many examples. Science is one. A few exceptional individuals make most significant advances in science and technology. We know their names – Newton, Einstein, Von Neuman, Edison, and others. Their contributions came from their fine minds and a powerful drive to learn and discover. They achieved fame, status, and often financial rewards for their contributions. But the rest of us became vastly better off because of them.

Similar examples exist in business, the arts, sports, and politics. We all enjoy a richer culture and higher standard of living from the contributions of a few people with exceptional talent and ambition. It may feel unfair that these individuals were so blessed with talent that they became rich and famous. But would we want to forgo their contributions?

An elite is an inevitable consequence of the variability in human talent. A small percentage of the population has dominated society economically, politically, and culturally since the beginning of human civilization. We are a highly social and hierarchical species. The individuals often rise to the top of the hierarchy based on talent. That may have been primarily because of exceptional strength and aggression in prehistoric times. The skills of the elite expanded to include political and social skills as society became more complex. Even in chimpanzee societies, leadership depends on political skills and strength.

Today, our society’s economic and technical complexity rewards intelligence, innovation, risk-taking, managerial skills, and leadership abilities. With some exceptions, the elite in all parts of society – government, science, business, sports, and culture – are in those positions because their talents, ambition, and work ethic are well above average.

It does not necessarily follow that people in the elite segment of society are good or better people. High achievers can have many negative personality traits. The character flaws of many geniuses have been well documented. What is important for this discussion is that they have skills and abilities that society benefits from.

This is not to ignore the many people who contribute to the success of geniuses, innovators, and leaders. They couldn’t do it entirely on their own. And many advances occur from more ordinary people taking innovations and applying them to solve problems and create value. Those people deserve credit too, and deserve to benefit. But we can’t ignore some people’s outsize impact on the rest of us. This impact would not occur unless individuals with special talent are allowed and encouraged to express those talents in socially acceptable ways.

To further illustrate the idea, imagine a world where all humans have the same intelligence, artistic ability, leadership ability, ambition, and work ethic. It is a world where everyone has average intelligence. No one is better looking or has more physical ability. Then, try to construct a scenario for how society would advance. I cannot construct a process where innovation and discovery could occur anywhere near the rate experienced in Western civilization. Without natural variation in human talent and a culture that supports it, our world would only be poorer.

Despite the strong desire for equality, inequality is highly desirable in many aspects of society and makes us better off overall. While sometimes I resent my lack of ability to excel at particle physics (my mother, as a young girl, had a crush on J Robert Oppenheimer), I am glad others do.

The Liberty Equality Trade-off

Another issue is the tradeoff between freedom and outcome inequality. Often, increased liberty increases outcome inequality. Conversely, reducing inequality requires reducing liberty. In a world with high levels of freedom and few constraints, people with the most talent, power, and ambition will be better off materially than those with fewer talents. However, efforts to reduce outcome gaps often reduce the freedom for high achievers to exercise and benefit from their abilities and ambitions.

This trade-off between freedom and equality is a simplification. It is not linear, and there are important exceptions. There are ways to achieve more equality without significantly restricting freedom. Often, this involves focusing on equal opportunity rather than equal outcomes. There are also many instances where reduced freedom benefits everyone. Many laws restrict our freedom but are widely supported because the benefits greatly outweigh the cost of restrictions.

At a fundamental level, if society wants the benefits from the contributions of the most talented, it needs to allow enough freedom for those individuals to develop, apply, and benefit from their talent and ambition. Too many restrictions and too much redistribution of benefits discourage people from making the most of their abilities and ambitions. The best approach is to find the right balance between freedom and control.

There has been something of an unwritten agreement between the high achievers and the rest of us, at least in western democracies. In exchange for the freedom to achieve success and benefit from it, they agree that society should benefit from their achievements. We allow entrepreneurs, risk-takers, innovators, and others of exceptional ability to become rich and have high status. But we expect to benefit in some way from what they do. This agreement is complex and fuzzy and is ignored by some. There is disagreement about what benefits should be shared and how. However, conceptually, it is an important principle to work from because it balances two critical objectives.

A market-based economy provides the basic framework for balancing public and private benefits. In most situations (there are important exceptions and caveats), people cannot become rich unless they are involved in producing something that the rest of us value and are willing to pay for. Whether it is a smartphone, a music concert, an effective drug, or a car, someone is getting rich delivering products and services that we are willing to stand in line to get. The market helps society benefit from the talents of a few. There are two parties to the agreement every time we buy something. There is probably no other single mechanism to balance individual rewards and public benefits.

Taxation and redistribution are another means of balancing the liberty-equality equation. We can take some of the financial rewards accruing to high achievers and give them to people with less money. The progressive income tax is the most common way to do this.

Status, Drive, and Ambition

Drive and ambition contribute to unequal outcomes. We are a highly social species (the most social of all mammals) and have a hierarchical social structure. The desire and drive for status and recognition affect us whether we are conscious of it or not. Combining individual variation in natural talents, a natural drive for status, and a hierarchical social structure leads to inequality. People naturally want to get ahead and will use their abilities to do so. Variation in the material, social, and psychological rewards people receive is inevitable.

The desire to improve one’s position in society is part of our nature and provides a powerful motivation that can benefit society. It is an oversimplification to see high achievers as greedy and interested only in money. For many, money is a way of keeping score and measuring status. That drive for status is not easily curtailed because it is part of human nature. We are unlikely to change the basic drive, but we can direct that drive in socially productive ways.

It is common to view ambition and the desire for status negatively. Unrestrained, it certainly can be. But we shouldn’t overlook the benefits of ambition or destroy the critical motivators for maximizing one’s talents. High achievers are humans like everyone else. There are reasons they work hard, take risks, and create. The desire for money, status, and recognition are powerful motivators.

The Risks of Inequality

Now for the downsides. There are many. Inequality can cause significant problems even as it makes our lives better. Our natural sense of fairness makes us empathetic for those who have less. The problems caused by inequality get the attention of politicians and the media.

Feelings of unfairness, resentment, and envy are a predictable consequence of input and outcome inequality. The tension between the haves and have-nots is as old as human civilization. Political, economic, and philosophical thinkers have wrestled with the problem since the beginning. It is an ongoing feature of the human condition that does not go away.

Tensions between the elite and the rest of society can lead to instability. There are many examples where the wealth and power gaps cause revolutions. Society does not function well when the elites are not trusted, use their power in ways harmful to society, and where merit is not the basis of elite status and power.

The many downsides of inequality need to be understood and addressed as we deal with the reality of the natural tendency toward inequality. The goal should be a balance where desirable inequality is fostered while containing the undesirable excesses of inequality.

How to Act in an Unequal World

How should a person behave in a world where people start life with diverse biological differences, grow up in different environments, and are affected by basic social forces leading to unequal outcomes? How does understanding the nature and processes affecting outcome inequality change what we do in life? What ideas should be opposed, and which ones championed? What obligation do we have to ourselves and others because of inequality?

The following are a few thoughts that have helped me answer these questions.

Make Your Talents Useful

People should develop and use their abilities and character to benefit others. Yes, we should be useful to ourselves, too. But we should use our abilities to make others better off. If we are fortunate to have special talents, and most people excel at something, wisely using those talents makes society better off. This approach directs inequality due to ability and character to the public good.

There are two parts to making the most of one’s abilities. The first part is developing our skills and character. It takes work and commitment to build character and develop capabilities to the level where they are helpful to others. An undeveloped ability and an unformed character help no one. Often, the people we respect most have spent a lifetime working to become who they are. And we all know people with exceptional ability who squandered it.

Properly applying developed ability and character follows. It is often through work, volunteering, hobbies, raising a family, and participation in public life that people benefit the community. Our choices in these areas determine the positive impact on society. It is fine to benefit personally from your talents, ambition, and hard work. However, we should favor professions, careers, volunteer activities, etc, with positive connections to public welfare. Doing this helps us answer “yes” to a fundamental question on thriving– am I acting in the best interests of others?

As I have made education and career choices, this has always been a factor in my decisions. While I certainly was looking to make more money and build a good life for my family and me, I would ask myself whether the work I chose to do was making the world a better place.

An advantage of this approach is we control much of it. We choose to develop our talents and character. There is no need to wait for others to change. Organizing collective action is not necessary. We can do this by choice and effort every day.

This direction helps reduce the problem of envy that can come with inequality. People are more accepting of a person’s higher status and greater wealth if they see society benefitting from their efforts. We make heroes of exceptionally talented people when they do what we like, value, and admire. We favor elites who are not out simply for themselves.

Recognize and Reward Merit

Recognition, social standing, and financial benefits should reward merit (ability plus hard work). Societies that favor merit over other criteria, such as class or political favoritism, have better economies and governments. It is an essential foundation for a thriving culture.

Merit-based societies took centuries to emerge and supplant class-based societies. For centuries, economic class at birth determined the options for a better life. Merit affected outcomes within a narrow range of possibilities. As class structures fractured, people of ability and ambition could advance regardless of their origins. Rapid advances in society resulted as the pool of talent expanded.

Individuals can encourage merit. Simply recognition goes far. Praise for a job well done, hard work, and excellence does much to reinforce those values. There are opportunities every day to recognize merit.

It is also essential to avoid inadvertently undermining merit by punishing the results. A meritocracy in any field (business, education, sport, entertainment) can readily produce unequal representation by groups such as race, sex, and nationality. It can be tempting to abandon or downgrade the role of merit in seeking more equal outcomes. That is a mistake because it deprives society of talent. There are better ways to address unfairness than by attacking merit-based decisions. The inequality resulting from merit should be accepted as a low price for all the benefits a meritocracy brings.

Support Equal Opportunity

A society can pass a fundamental fairness and justice test if everyone has an equal opportunity to benefit from their talent, hard work, and ambition. The best way to reduce the tension of unequal outcomes is to focus on creating equal opportunity. This has long been a widely supported public policy. Recently, the emphasis on equal outcomes has raised questions about this policy. As argued here, unequal outcomes are inevitable due to variation in abilities. Strong efforts to provide equal opportunity regardless of race, class, sex, etc., reduce the unease accompanying unequal outcomes. Everyone should have a fair chance at success in life.

Therefore, we should be interested in supporting policies and actions that remove the existing barriers based on conditions unrelated to ability, such as race or sex. A meritocracy works best when these conditions are met. There are many opportunities to further the idea of equal opportunity.

Support Optimal Regulation and Redistribution

Controlling excesses is necessary for a society with natural inequality to function well. People are imperfect. Some are naturally prone to excess. Some will do bad things for strictly personal gain. There are selfish, ill-willed, talented people who focus entirely on their well-being, disregarding the welfare of others. Even people with good intentions can get off course and harm society.

These tendencies need controls to prevent harm and instability. The rule of law was conceived for this reason. Whether in business or private life, there is a desirable level of regulation that curtails bad behavior. Regulation of weights and measures began when the first markets formed thousands of years ago. Wise laws regulating behavior and providing guardrails for people pursuing happiness make society better off as a whole, even if it curtails the freedom of a few. The unending challenge is finding the best balance between encouraging behavior that benefits society and preventing harm. That is a fundamental role of political systems.

Another way to avoid damaging excesses is by redistributing wealth and income. This is a touchy subject. There are good arguments for and against redistribution. Both extremes are unlikely to work. It is a significant issue of freedom since redistribution takes from one person to give to another. Without redistribution, levels of inequality can result in significant social instability. Too much redistribution can discourage individuals from making the effort and working hard to develop and apply their talents.

I favor seeking an optimal middle ground. That middle ground is where individuals feel they can be fairly rewarded for their talent, ambition, and hard work. They are motivated in part by the financial rewards of excelling. The middle ground is where people who, through no fault of their own, cannot attain the basics in life receive help from those who are more financially successful.

The optimal level of redistribution is a political question. Our political system must make these determinations. It will and should be an ongoing political discussion. The political judgment of optimal will vary as will be the desired means for redistribution.

Conclusion

People don’t enter this world with equal abilities. That is good because there are people who excel in every category of human ability. Properly focused, society benefits from the contributions of people who develop and apply their exceptional skills.

Good character and ambition also benefit society. We want people who pursue developing a good character. Ambition can be positive for society if it enables actions that provide some common good.

Elites are a natural and necessary result of human variation and a hierarchical society. It is best when elites achieve that high status through ability, good character, hard work, and ambition. It is best to have an elite based on merit and contributions rather than hereditary status or brute force.

We can contribute to this by fully developing and applying our talents. Nearly everyone can excel in something through natural ability and hard work. We should do our part. We should also support the societal norms and policies that make all this possible. That includes norms and policies that encourage and reward merit while avoiding inequality gaps great enough to threaten the stability of society.

The inevitable differences in outcomes is best addressed by assuring equal opportunity to benefit from one’s ability and hard work combined with a commitment to ensure that all can enjoy the basics of life.