ON EGALITARIANISM AND EQUALITY.(erosion of Australia's egalitarian society)

IN 1955, in his book Good Behaviour, the British diplomat and writer Harold Nicolson wrote:

 
   In an epoch when egalitarianism is quickly expanding, when the whole earth 
   is menaced by uniformity, it is comforting to recall that mankind has 
   progressed owing to difference rather than to sameness, owing, not to 
   similitude, but to variation. It is fissure rather than attachment that has 
   furthered evolution; it has been from dissimilarity rather than similarity 
   that the richest cultures have emerged. Even in the most monotonous or 
   regimented community it has been the exceptional rather than the ordinary 
   individual who has assumed leadership and invented progress. Warmly as I 
   advocate equality of opportunity, I do not believe that all men are created 
   equal or that a society based upon such a fallacy will advance very far in 
   the pursuit of happiness. To me it appears wholly insufficient to construct 
   a system by which the individual will be protected against fear and want. 
   The ideal society, while providing safety, should also furnish 
   opportunities for the expression of idiosyncrasy, the enjoyment of 
   differing pleasures, and the embellishment of life. Those types of civility 
   which seek to further such purposes are "good" types; whereas those which 
   seek to forbid or cramp such opportunities are "bad". Our social 
   conscience, our hatred of social injustice, are admirable innovations; it 
   would be sad were they to make us dull. 

Oh, how much further have the forces of dullness succeeded than Harold Nicolson could have ever imagined.

Today we are swamped by the continual rant that Australia is becoming less and less the egalitarian society which it was of old. Whether the Australia of the past was actually as egalitarian as we believe is beside the point. It is our belief in Australia as the egalitarian society that is put forward as one of the unique features of our society, marking us different from others. Even our Prime Minister, John Howard, has recently called our egalitarian society one of the "crowning achievements" of the Australian way of life.

Our media, particularly the ABC, make a point of every example of the erosion of our egalitarian society highlighting the increasing disparity between rich and poor, the increasing shift to students being taught at private schools, the problems faced by battlers making ends meet or buying a house and the growing divide between the bush and the city. All of these problems are used as examples of reasons to mourn the loss of the old Australia, the egalitarian Australia, the nation of the "fair go". In many respects, the feeling that we have lost that old Australia has helped fuel Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party; that in this new economic world we created under the Hawke--Keating and now the Howard governments, there is no longer any room for the old egalitarian Australian society we grew up with.

So far, our debate on the erosion of our egalitarian society has really been an attack on outcomes--that we are no longer the egalitarian society of the past because people are no longer as equal as they were in the past. Economists will argue over whether it is true that we really have become less equal, as to whether over the past hundred, fifty or twenty years the allocation of resources within society is controlled by fewer and fewer people. Clearly, people have reported in almost every survey that they feel Australia is a less egalitarian society than in their youth.

But what do we mean by an egalitarian society, and when do we know we are less or more egalitarian? Purely on the degree of disparity between rich and poor? When and how did we decide that an egalitarian society meant that we must all be equal in outcome rather than in opportunity?