During his recent lectures, Yaron Brook has spoken a lot about the evils of equality and the virtues of inequality. For those that are unfamiliar with him or with Ayn Rand’s philosophy this might seem to imply that he is in favor of discrimination by non-essentials, i.e. racism, sexism and etc, but this is the farthest thing from the truth. In his recent talk in Sweden, he spells out exactly in what sense he feels equality has any relevance:

The only sense of equality that means anything is in the sense which the Founding Fathers talked about all men being created equal in the Declaration of Independence. It is in the sense of political equality, that is we are equally free. We all equally have the right to our own lives. We all equally have the right to make decisions for ourselves. We all equally have a right to liberty, to pursue our happiness. Nobody should be coerced. Nobody should be forced. … Force should be extracted from the equation and we should all be left free. …

At the end of the day it is all about individual freedom.

Any attempt to seek another form of equality, be it equality of opportunity, equality of outcome or any other you can think of, can only result the use of force against the innocent. This force can take many guises ranging from the compulsory taxes and absurd occupational licensing we have in the United States to the brutal slaughter inflicted by the Khmer Rouge and an infinite number of degrees in between. (Interestingly, during the Q&A someone suggested in answer to Yaron’s question about how to make Yaron equal to LeBron James in basketball that basketball be banned. This is in part what the Khmer Rouge did when they gained power, closing schools, hospitals, factories, banks [all currency and records were destroyed to eliminate any claim to funds] and confiscating all private property. In other words, banning all the things they felt made people unequal.)

As Yaron put it in the same talk from Sweden:

The whole campaign for equality is a campaign of force. It is a campaign of violence. And that is how we, those who oppose it, need to hold it because we need to be outraged by it. …

The idea of equality of outcome is the most evil idea I can think of.