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An important insight of Karl Marx was that rights, as in individual rights established in the law, create inequality. The reason for this is obvious. People are not equal so left to their own devices, they will have different life outcomes. More important, since human society is defined by scarcity, this will inevitably result in the unequal distribution of the benefits of society. A rights regime will impact the distributive choices because the more talented will lay claim to a greater share of benefits.
Communism would solve this problem by first producing superabundance, so that those distributive choices were greatly simplified. Of course, superabundance is only possible when you eliminate gross inequality. This leads to Marx’s expression, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” This is a main difference with socialism, which seeks to close the gap between the rich and poor through redistribution of wealth.
This is all sounds quaint and a bit nutty in the current age, but it turns out these problems are going to be front and center in the diverse future. If you listen to the diversity warriors, most of what they are saying revolves around what Marxists would have called distributive choices. Instead of thinking about the distribution of benefits based along individual or class lines, like the communists, they think about the problem along lines of group identity.
The logic flows from egalitarianism. If all people are equal, inequality must be the result of something other than nature. Individual choice can explain differences in individuals, but what explains measurable differences in groups of people? The only option once you eliminate the obvious is the structure of society itself. The reason blacks, for example, are overrepresented in prison is the criminal justice system distributes justice unequally between the races.
This is what the diversity warriors mean when they talk about whiteness or white supremacy culture. These are the unwritten rules of society that benefit one group over other groups. Since it is white societies that make this form of madness possible, they naturally conclude that white society is the problem. As insane as it is, the diversity warriors are not irrational. From their starting premise, theirs is the only rational answer for why we have inequality in our societies.
This is why conservatives are worthless against these arguments. Here is a “conservative case for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” post in National Review that is a good example of the problem. The author thinks there is some accommodation within his conventional American view of politics for the politics of diversity. He assumes that these people will accept equality of opportunity, when in fact they view that argument as the problem they are seeking to eliminate.
This is the central problem of diversity. Scarcity is a permanent feature of all human societies, even wealthy ones. For example, there is a finite amount of health care in America, which means some people get less, maybe even no health care, while others get the heath care they need. Since there are still some market forces at work, rich people will get luxurious levels of health care. Dick Cheney, for example, was able to buy a heart for himself.
Further, Mother Nature does not distribute her gifts equally among people, so no two people are identical and no two groups of people are equal. Combined with the scarcity problem, it means there will be an unequal distribution of benefits between people and also groups of people. Even more important, the more diverse your society, the less equal the outcomes appear. The reason is there are lots of people with a grievance for not being in the top group of society.
The way to think of it is this. In 1950’s America, blacks were a little more than 10% of the population, while whites were a little less than 90%. There was a small percentage of Asians and other. In a world where 10% of the population has a racial grievance, most of the rest can safely ignore the complaints. In a majority-minority society, the majority always has a beef with the minority group at the top, so that minority group must always be on guard against the majority.
This is why the arguments in favor of natural rights or equal opportunity sound increasingly ridiculous to people who live in the world. To conservatives they make perfect sense, because their income depends upon maintaining these fictions. To the diversity warriors, these arguments are confirmation that they have the morally superior argument and therefore they are justified in pushing even harder. The conservative case for diversity is exactly what it claims.
Instead of letting nature take its course, the Marxists imagined an administrative state making the distributive choices. It was this managerial layer that would determine “according to his needs” issue. The diversity warriors have assumed control of the managerial state and the corresponding administrative state. They are now proceeding to remedy the equality problem. From each race according to their abilities, to each race according to their needs.
Of course, this has no better chance of working than Marxism. Unlike communism, however, this new egalitarian drive will not just make people poorer. It will unleash the passions of cultural differences that cannot be remedied. These differences are the product of thousands of years of separation. This is ultimately the conservative case for diversity. It promises to unleash 10,000 years of evolutionary differences within the confines of Western societies.
This is what makes American conservatism so evil. It is the sugary drink in which the poison of egalitarianism is dosed to society. The diversity warriors believe they are on the side of angels, while the so-called conservative know otherwise, but they choose to cash in on the madness. The simpleton who wrote that NRO piece is too dumb to get this, but his handlers surely know better. Yet, they volunteer to be the willing accomplices to the executioners of Western civilization.
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