Continuation of Dworkin theory on equality - Tosin Onibiyo

Now, to the two general theories of distributional equality I proposed to talk about earlier in this paper. The first I call equality of welfare and the second I called equality of resources. I will be speaking briefly about this two in this part of the essay. Equality of welfare can be well described as an interpretation of treating people as equals. In other words, it holds that a distributional scheme when it transfers or distributes resources among people, it treats them as equal. But when it no longer transfers, this would leave them more equal in welfare. On the other hand, equality of resources holds that distributional scheme treats people as equals when it distributes or transfers so that no further transfer would leave their shares of the total resources more equal.

These two theories as just stated are very abstract because each holds different interpretation and theories to it. If a man with wealth for example was to draw his will based on equality of welfare, between six kids; where one is deaf, another a pimp with quality rich taste, the third a writer with less-expensive taste, another a successful governor with expensive ambitions, and so forth. If he was to base this on equality of welfare, he has to take all differences between his children into account so as to not leave them equal shares according to my article on “What is equality.” Why is or should this be so?  The ideal of equality of welfare may seem a plausible explanation of why this is so. Because when we look at the example closely enough, we will see that those who are handicapped like the deaf child in all fairness should be entitled to more wealth than the others. He is deaf and for this reason, he will need more resources to achieve the equal welfare. Even with this equal welfare analysis, this same example provides some problems for the ideal. Some might insist that the governor will need more of the wealth than the deaf because he will need more money to run his political campaigns. Some might say it’s the pimp who needs more money than the writer to continuously look expensive and flashy. We can say the governor case from this example is much stronger than that of others but weaker in comparison to the deaf child. But if it were to be based on equality of resources, he need not worry on how to not leave them with equal share but how to equally divide his wealth assuming the children have almost the same wealth as the other. Furthermore, I argue that equality ofresources presupposes an economic market of some form,mainly as an analytical mechanism but also, to a certain extent, as an actual political institution. And economic market have been seen as a device for both defining and achieving certain community-wide goals variously described as prosperity, efficiency, and overall utility. Also as a necessary condition of individual liberty, the condition under which free men and women may exercise individual initiative and choice so that their fates lie in their own hands. But the economic market has during this same period come to be regarded as the enemy of equality, largely because the forms of economic market systems developed and enforced in industrial -countries have permitted and indeed encouraged vast inequality in property.