causal

Strict Material Equality Requires Totalitarianism

Achieving exact material equality at all times would require a totalitarian system, because letting people think and act freely produces unequal outcomes; the egalitarian goal should instead be to bound the distance between top and bottom so that no one is reduced to begging mercy from the wealthy.

causalpending

Speaker

Elizabeth Anderson

Evidence Quote

still, you can put parameters on how big the distance is between the top and the bottom, and those could be pretty stringent. You don't want the inequalities to be so extreme that you have desperate people who are begging mercy from people who have all the wealth.

Source

139 | Elizabeth Anderson on Equality, Work, and IdeologySean Carroll's Mindscape
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:29:50 AM

My Notes

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