Mr. Jebb is a British educator, editor, and journalist.

Editor’s Note: It is not our purpose to take sides in what might be deemed the political affairs of Great Britain. This critique of “Towards Equality,” a pamphlet recently released by the British Labor party, is presented primarily for those in this country who are increasingly confronted with these same arguments for enforced equality.

Equality is a noble-sounding word, but, like so many other noble-sounding words—such as democracy—it is today being applied to policies very far from noble. The Soviet has appropriated “democracy” as a name for its devilish theories of government. The British Labor party is doing the same with the word “equality.”

Last July there was published in London a policy pronouncement by the Labor party entitled “Towards Equality.” At first reading the thesis it propounds may appear too absurd to merit much attention, but it would be a mistake to discount its possible effects. The fact is that for years the central objective of socialism has been what socialists call equality. This latest labor pamphlet gives a pretty clear idea of what they mean by the term.

Before summarizing its specific aims, let us note two ominous statements in the introduction. First, the avowed determination “not just to run the country but to change the nature of society itself.” Then secondly, “There exists in a capitalist system a strong persistent trend towards economic and social inequality which can only be contained by deliberate and continuous State intervention” (my italics). So there we have it. In order to produce a result impossible save under an absolute despotism, unceasing (and we may add all-embracing) intervention by the State will be deliberately brought i n t o play. Those are the general principles that govern this labor pronouncement.

Let us see what these inequalities are said to be and the means proposed to level them out.

The first thing to be dealt with is education. Here there are two criticisms of the English system: that it accentuates social classes and that the different types of schools offer varying opportunities to the pupils for obtaining lucrative posts when they leave. The “public” schools—that is the independent, fee-paying schools which would be called private schools in the United States—are criticized for encouraging social snobbery and for giving their pupils a better education than that supplied by the state schools, so that pupils from those private and voluntarily financed schools are more likely to obtain the better positions. The reason given for this is that the privately financed schools have larger financial resources than the state schools—a strange argument seeing that the latter are backed by the whole resources of the State.

But on the question of equality of opportunity the pamphlet goes further than that. It even complains of the inequality of culture in different families so that “the competitive advantage would lie strongly with those whose family background was materially and culturally enriched.” So it is to be presumed that not only incomes but culture also must be pruned to a dead level. That presumption is strengthened by the fact that many socialists are calling for the abolition of the privately financed schools.

The pamphlet then turns to the inequalities apparent in different grades of work and in personal incomes. As regards conditions of work, there are no doubt improvements that could and should be made. But to cry out against every variance of conditions linked with work entailing more as against less responsibility, more as against less intelligence, and more as against less initiative is to destroy all incentive. The same is largely true of differences of income. To condemn a man just because he has a larger income than another man can only be the result of envy, nor can there be any way of effecting and maintaining equality of incomes except by outright tyranny.

The next heading of the pamphlet is “Equality and Wealth,” and by wealth the authors mean money and property personally owned. Here the envy motive is clearly evident. The critics resent any accumulation of personal property, apparently not because they want productive property more evenly divided, but because they are envious of material success. Instead of encouraging the propertyless members of society to become property owners themselves, their seeming objective is to rob those owning more than a fixed amount and to use the money so obtained to strengthen the power of the State. Such a course, apart from being ethically indefensible, would ruin the economy of the country. For if the State is to be the only dispenser of incomes, its organization will demand an enormous bureaucracy, which in turn will require an increased volume of taxation. But if nobody possesses more than a living wage, then from whom are these enormous taxes to be collected?

So much for the general plan, which may seem, as I said above, so extravagantly absurd as to be of little practical importance. I should be the first to agree that a permanent equalization of wealth and incomes is utterly impossible short of a sustained despotism which no civilized country could tolerate. But it is not the success of the scheme so much as the means that might be adopted in an attempt to put it through that would be disastrous, not only to Great Britain but also as an example that might be followed by other free nations.

The lines of action proposed in the pamphlet confirm this. They comprise a tightening of income tax and death duties (already extortionate on any considerable capital or income), a capital gains tax, and possibly a tax on expenditure. Also proposed is an extension of state ownership by two new methods: (1) by collecting death duties in land and company shares as well as in cash, and (2) by boosting the government budget enough to make good the growing deficits in industries already nationalized.

Clearly, if these proposals are put into practice, a large number of rich people will be impoverished (which is the main object of the scheme),. But in addition, the following results are hound to occur: the incentive to produce, to provide for one’s family, even to work at all will be so reduced as to endanger the whole economy of the country; the state machine will be vastly more expensive to run; and the increased power of centralized government will imperil the freedom of the citizen.

Such are some of the latest maneuvers of those who are wedded to the idea of a collectivist society. They show unmistakably the plight of those who live in such a society—i.e., the loss of personal freedom—but they also reveal a sinister quality in the make-up of collectivism. They assume that the State, besides being the paymaster of the nation, is its moral director. These planners imagine they can create a classless society by reducing everyone’s income to a flat level. This is a monstrous assumption and is made more monstrous by the fact that the end is to be achieved by encouraging envy and robbery. Social snobbery is a moral disease that cannot be cured by legislation, least of all by legislation based upon hatred of the more prosperous.

We all know that the Soviet government looks upon morals and law as its own perquisite to be interpreted in a way most likely to increase its stranglehold on the people. This Labor party pamphlet makes one wonder how far the Poison of communist statism has infiltrated the minds of those who call: themselves socialists, social democrats, or laborites. They publicly disown Marxism, but their policies do not bear out what they profess.

It is a warning to all those who value liberty: []

An Invisible Hand

It is only for the sake of profit that any man employs a capital in the support of industry; and he will always, therefore, endeavor to employ it in the support of that industry of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value . . . .

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it . . . By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it.

By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations