Comment in 150 words: Equality of opportunity. (2020, 10 Marks)
Equality of opportunity holds that the competition for scarce positions must be fair, so that unequal results reflect what people do rather than the circumstances of their birth. Its classic statement is Article 6 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789): citizens are equally admissible to all public posts according to their capacity, with no distinction but virtue and talent.
Meaning
The sharpest modern formulation is John E. Roemer‘s (Equality of Opportunity, 1998). He separates circumstances — caste, class, sex, place of birth, beyond one’s control — from effort. Policy should offset circumstances until the remaining differences in outcome track effort alone. The aim is a level playing field, not a tied result.
Three levels of the ideal
- Formal: “careers open to talents” — legal barriers removed, as in Article 16(1) of the Indian Constitution.
- Fair: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971) requires that people of equal talent and willingness have equal prospects whatever their class of origin. He ranks this before the difference principle, which then allows only inequalities that benefit the least advantaged.
- Deeper: Ronald Dworkin‘s equality of resources (1981) starts from an equal initial share and insures against handicap, so distribution is sensitive to ambition but not to endowment. Amartya Sen (“Equality of What?”, 1979) replies that equal resources do not yield equal freedom, since people convert them differently; the state must build capabilities — health, education, agency.
Fair competition in practice
India pursues it through reservation (Articles 15(4), 16(4)), scholarships, and the Right to Education Act, 2009, whose Section 12(1)(c) reserves a quarter of entry-level private-school seats for disadvantaged children.
Critiques
- Marxists see it as bourgeois fairness that legitimises class inequality; Karl Marx called equal right “a right of inequality”, and his followers demand equality of outcome instead.
- R. H. Tawney (Equality, 1931) mocked the comfort of “intelligent tadpoles” that a lucky few will one day “rise to be frogs”; real opportunity needs “an equal start”, not just “an open road”.
- Michael Young‘s satire The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958) warned that meritocracy breeds a self-righteous elite.
- Robert Nozick denies any such entitlement — “life is not a race” — and full equalisation would reach into the family, which Rawls admitted “may be a barrier to equal chances”.
Conclusion
Almost everyone endorses equality of opportunity; almost no one agrees on its content. Whether it becomes real depends less on the theory chosen than on the capacity of disadvantaged groups to press their claims and of the state to deliver schools, health and fair recruitment.