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There is nothing more harmful and dangerous in today’s world than the discourse that demonizes inequality as if it were an anti-value. Those who promote this vision of humanity indirectly want to tell you that it is wrong to think for yourself, to progress, to work, to educate yourself, to generate wealth, they encourage you to keep in line with your neighbor, and your neighbor’s neighbor, not to dazzle or strive, in order to build the most egalitarian society of all.
The egalitarian zeal treats human beings like lab rats, all must have their white fur and run at the same time on the treadmill of life, while waiting for food from their masters -the government-, and waiting for the night to sleep.
When they tell you that inequality is bad, they are telling you that your individuality is a sin, that your thoughts are forbidden, and little by little, what they are actually doing is murdering your freedoms, your sacred right to function as an individual.
It is not an exaggeration to say that absolute equality would destroy the human race, the Soviet Union and China are examples of how the egalitarian end of socialism-communism murdered a hundred million people in the last century.
Without the right to be unequal, to think for ourselves, to act and exercise our full economic freedom, we would never have known the great inventions of humanity, from the wheel to the computer, from printing presses to the internet, and all the technology that today has made it possible for billions of human beings to live above the poverty line, to have a fridge full of food, electricity and drinking water in their homes.
It is precisely in societies where inequality is appreciated that the best ideas and technologies of the modern era have emerged, where competition and individual preparedness are encouraged, where all the inventions that make our lives better have flourished; in reality there is absolutely nothing plausible in “wanting to be equal.”
Equality is not only materially impossible, it should be a crime to profess it, for the road to “equality” is actually a highway to repression, a vehicle to extinguish the human species. Can you imagine what would become of the world today if the inventors of the wheel had been repressed for creating something outstanding? What would become of humanity if Leonardo Da Vinci, Johannes Gutenberg, Galileo Galilei, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, had been punished and eliminated for thinking differently?
I recently read the fascinating story of Jan Ernst Matzeliger, recommended by my friend Lawrence Reed. Matzeliger, born in Suriname, son of slaves, escaped to the United States in search of freedom and completely revolutionized the shoe industry, as he created the machine that would be responsible for attaching the soles of shoes in industrial quantities, an invention that allowed the production of shoes to skyrocket and millions of people could buy them at a much lower price. His invention not only brought him great economic benefits, but also benefited a large number of human beings who at that time could not afford a pair of shoes.
If the ideas of any of these historical figures had been censored in the totalitarian pursuit of equality, human beings would probably still be sleeping in caves and dying of colds at the age of 25.
Today’s politicians, mostly of leftist ideological bent, with their collectivist zeal to completely dominate the lives of citizens, have made egalitarian discourse heroic, preying on less developed minds to sell them prophecies that divide the world into haves and have-nots; whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians; oppressed and oppressors; and make segregation their vehicle to push “wealth redistribution” agendas.
Every action employed for the purpose of “equalizing” by force is not only killing someone else’s freedoms, but is in turn fostering a social and economic system whose only end can be misery, hunger, and exploitation by those who claim to be the defenders of “equality.”
The only equality, as has been repeated so many times, must be before the law, and laws cannot be vehicles for human beings to receive discriminatory treatment by governments; every law that privileges and/or discriminates against one social, racial or economic group over another is committing an act of injustice.
There is nothing praiseworthy in creating societies where there is no right to dissent, there is nothing heroic in punishing those who produce work, innovation and wealth. Let’s start calling things by their name, the promoters of equality are really assassins of human freedom, and in turn, potential serial genocides, because their “noble” actions, whether they are carried out with good or bad intentions, always end up causing famine, disease, misery and death.
Emmanuel Rincón is a lawyer, writer, novelist and essayist. He has won several international literary awards. He is Editor-at-large at El American // Emmanuel Rincón es abogado, escritor, novelista y ensayista. Ganador de diversos premios literarios internacionales. Es editor-at-large en El American