Most people care a lot about equality. References to it abound in national mottoes and constitutions. But what do people really mean when they talk about equality?

Surely they know people are unequal in countless ways already: strength, intelligence, looks, height, gender, age, and so on. It is impossible to equalize people in these areas, outside of science fiction. So the only way people can be equal in a meaningful way is if they are held to the same standard.

But some people don’t like that. In particular, it bothers them a great deal that some are rich and others are poor. Others demand that people they perceive as inferior be treated differently.

I once saw a very interesting video of an experiment with monkeys. There were two monkeys in separate cages but close enough to see each other. They had tokens in their cages, and the trainers had taught the monkeys to hand them the tokens in exchange for a cucumber slice. But then they started giving one monkey grapes instead of cucumbers. Monkeys like cucumbers, but they love grapes. The other monkey began throwing back the cucumber slices at the trainers when it was not getting “equal pay for equal work.”

It appears that primates have a kind of instinct for fairness. People are similar, except that they become angry in response to things they merely *perceive* as unfair. Social justice has become the new catchphrase for this group, though they most shy away from explaining how it differs from regular justice.

Imagine your boss calls you to his office and tells you you’ve been doing great work this year and so decides to give you a bonus of $5,000. You walk out of the office feeling amazing. A coworker notices and asks what you’re so happy about. You tell him about the bonus and he replies, “Oh, I got $10,000 and so did everyone else.” You would probably instantly become angry. But why? You’re still richer than you were before. Why would it upset you that others are doing better? Their greater success did not cause your lesser success. You’d probably be angry because you’d say to yourself you’re just as good as them and so deserve the same – even if this wasn’t true.

The easiest way to be unhappy is to compare yourself to other people. This is why many religions teach that envy is a sin.

Communist countries, too, tried to eliminate envy by making everyone equal. There was an inherent contradiction in this. If you put a group in charge of equalizing people, you have created a new form of inequality. There are many jokes about this from the USSR:

In the US, the rich become powerful, but in the USSR, the powerful become rich.

In capitalism, man exploits man, but in socialism, it’s the other way around.

One joke I particularly like is the story of a bunch of triumphant Bolsheviks rejoicing in the streets after they hear of the revolution. They ask an old woman why she isn’t rejoicing, that soon there will be no more rich people. The old woman says “I thought the point of the revolution was that there would be no more *poor* people.”

Although it often rubs us the wrong way when we see someone doing better than us, it’s important to resist the urge to bring them down. When people are free to be the best they can be, the result is better goods and services for everyone.

Finally, it’s important to realize that money and power always find each other, no matter how hard we try to keep them apart. The only answer to this is for people to believe that there should be strict limits on the government’s power and that people should be free to live as they want. Aristotle said justice consists of“treating equals equally, and unequals unequally.” Anything else is unjust and stupid.

Freedom does not guarantee happiness, but forced equality guarantees misery.