Myth of Equality

Here’s the problem with both education and health care in this country (and maybe other things as well): We want to provide the very best for everyone — everyone gets a college degree, everyone gets MRIs, CAT scans, knee replacements, etc. But those are unrealistic goals, the Lake Woebegon effect, where everyone is above average, everyone gets what they need. The reality is that that’s not reality. Perhaps it’s an ambition, a goal that we would like to achieve. But policy should face the fact that not everyone can (or should) get a college degree, that not everyone can receive the high-tech, high-priced health care that’s now available to a few. It would be nice to live in an egalitarian society where all are equal and all have equal access to all. It would be nice to live in Shagri-La. But we really need to drop the bar for everyone — if we want all to have equal access — or admit that that is not a possibility and we live, for better or worse, in a culture (like all cultures) of class and that we should make things as good as we can for everyone in whatever class they migrate to (or be stuck in). “Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.” — Balzac