Liberty University
Topic Brief
Egalitarianism
Rabin Budhathoki
Instructor-Ronald Miller
GOVT 329-B02
Due Date-September 18, 2017
Egalitarianism
America is one of the most affluent nation on earth and American Exceptionalism can be
attributed to the fact that America hold itself accountable to its principles and ideologies for the
longest, which makes it such an exceptional country. Among traits like industriousness,
religiosity, community life, and culture; which were mentioned by Charles Murray in his book,
American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History, one trait that has proven more relevant
over time is, “Egalitarianism.”
So, now the question is, what is egalitarianism? To put it more simply, egalitarianism is a
philosophy or just a school of thought, which prioritizes equality for all. It might have different
definitions based on social, political or economic views, but one word that is common among all
those is ‘equality.’ As the popular human ideal states, that all humans are created equal in the
eyes of God, the statement cannot be any more relevant when it comes to defining
egalitarianism.
Egalitarianism came to be uniquely associated with American culture at the time of American
Revolution and prevailed all over the American way of life afterwards. The idea of
egalitarianism, very much invoked in the social and political spectrum of the American society at
the time gave America a social advantage over the rest of the world and made them the most
egalitarian nation in the world. Furthermore, the feeling of being ruled by someone, being
deprived of the fundamental rights gave Americans an incentive to live in an egalitarian society,
which of course as in today’s society has been an absolute reversal to the ideas of egalitarianism
in the early American society.
Whilst 'egalitarianism' is a multifaceted notion in social and political thought, common forms of
egalitarianism include economic egalitarianism, moral egalitarianism, legal egalitarianism,
democratic egalitarianism, political egalitarianism, gender egalitarianism and opportunity
egalitarianism (Islam et.al 2006). All these forms of egalitarianism have a certain place in the
world, most importantly in the American society. As we all know, American society, as all
others, is hierarchical. The existence of elites is predominant in every society and American
society is not an exception. This very idea of equality has helped shape America into a nation we
know today, but one must acknowledge the fact, that America has become one of the most
unequal countries in the world in terms of wealth distribution, social justice, and basically in just
about anything that touches the American class. One must understand the reason behind why we
are the most exceptional nation on earth and the factors that attributed to the rise of American
Exceptionalism. To put this into perspective, one can say that both inequality and American
exceptionalism are high on the national political agenda (Freeland 2012). Even though, we were
built as a nation on the foundation of equality and justice for all, we have become a very
discriminatory society over time. So, it is fair to say that what once used to be the virtue of
American Exceptionalism, has now become the vice of the people, and it can prove extremely
detrimental to America and its values in the long run.
Finally, the two most important issue we need to address in terms of egalitarianism is, what do
we want as Americans and where do we see ourselves when it comes to equality in the world?
The United States has higher income and wealth inequality than almost all other developed
countries (Carter & Reardon 2014). Apart from income inequality, we have seen an increasing
number of social, political, and cultural inequality among the general population. This trait of
equality is still in the American fabric, but unfortunately, we have not practiced equality to a
level, where American Exceptionalism would be defined in terms of egalitarianism.
Bibliography,
1. Murray, Charles., American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History. The American
Enterprise Institution for Public Policy Research, 2013. pp. 7-37.
2. Islam, M. Kamrul, Juan Merlo, Ichiro Kawachi, Martin Lindström, Ulf-G Gerdtham.,
Social capital and health: Does egalitarianism matter? A literature review. International
Journal for Equity in Health 5:3, 2006.
3. Freeland, Chrystia., America, Land of The Equals, The New York Times, 2012.
4. Carter, L. Prudence and Reardon, F. Sean., Inequality Matters, A William T. Grant
Foundation Inequality Paper, 2014.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
