Passion For Equality Research Articles

Some Economic Implications of John Rawls' Theory of Justice

The difference principle of John Rawls is viewed as a modest reconstitution of the Pareto test for maximization of total welfare. The author illustrates through use of utility analysis that the difference principle for redressing inequities requires the least redistribution of the several options available to persons in Rawls' initial position. Furthermore, the Rawlsian framework is placed in a broader notion of equity which calls into question whether Rawls' theory adequately addresses the problem of absolute as opposed to relative advantages to the least advantaged. Democratic institutions awaken and flatter the passion for equality without ever being able to satisfy it entirely. This complete equality is always slipping through the people's fingers at the moment when they think to grasp it, fleeing as Pascal says, in an eternal flight; the people grow heated in search of this blessing, all the more precious because it is near enough to be seen but too far off to be tasted.

Trends in Leadership Succession and Regime Change in African Politics since Independence

It is the passion for equality which is at the root of sedition.… When one begins with an initial error it is inevitable that one should end badly. —Aristotle Leadership succession and regime change lie at the center of two perennial problems of governance: (1) how to ensure the political continuity of any regime without endangering the political stability of the political community; (2) how to protect both the regime and the political community against the natural disposition of those in power to manipulate their office so that they could extend their terms of office or succeed themselves against the provisions of written or unwritten rules of managing political power and succession rights. There can be little doubt, then, that the political acts that surround leadership succession and regime change constitute a most serious aspect of political life in any society. In all political systems in general, and in African politics in particular, such acts constitute an important index of the development or deterioration of politics. The renewed focus on Africa since the middle 1950s as a subject of political inquiry and theorizing has contributed greatly to the existing body of literature on political development, modernization and related subfields of Comparative Politics. Unfortunately, this rather extensive body of literature has not provided us with a definitive knowledge of the dynamics of social and political change. In this regard, major events in African politics have continued to cast doubts on the validity of many an earlier theoretical formulation and expectation.

Two Forms of the Love of Equality in Tocqueville's Practical Teaching for Democracy

This exploration of the oppressive pressure toward uniformity alleged to be inherent in the modern democratic passion for equality nicely supplements the symposium on tolerance. At the core of Tocqueville's analysis of democracy is the democratic citizen's love of equality. Tocqueville sought to distinguish noble from debased equality (one elevates the humble, the other depresses the great), and to strengthen the former, Koritansky writes, resisting centralization as the ever-attractive assurance of equality of conditions. This essay explores the tyrannical component of community founded on civil religion and dedicated to equality.

Chicano Control of Chicano History: A Review of Selected Literature

History, to paraphrase Karl Marx, is written and rewritten by those who control the instruments of writing and production. It is the dominion, we might add, of those who have the skills to manipulate the scholarly industry. The validity of this proposition is reflected in the conscious or unconscious efforts of established nations to protect their positions in world history and to sustain the senses of nationality that ensures and justifies the transmission of national character to each succeeding generation. The proposition applies to emerging nations, too, in which distinctive racial and ethnic minorities struggle with equal passion to preserve their own interpretations of history and cultural distinctiveness. In new nations, in fact, minority groups may be even more removed from control of the instruments of writ ing and production than in older nations. The Indian populations of Mexico, Guate mala, and Peru are notable New World examples. Asia and Africa offer countless oth ers. Minority groups living in Western nations such as the United States may be close to achieving control of their own histories, and, through them, we may be able to un derstand how groups acquire the means for the writing and rewriting of history. The United States has a large number of minority groups. Each is in a different state of real or imagined social alienation. This essay considers how one of these groups, the Chicanos, is progressing in its struggle for opportunities to rewrite history ?to state its own special case to the Anglos who control their society and to the rest of the world.

A New Menandrian Prototype for the "Servus Currens" of Roman Comedy

W HEN THE CAIRO PAPYRUS in 1905 gave to the world the first substantial quantity of Menander, scholars found answers to some problems concerning the relation between Greek New Comedy and Roman Comedy, but many questions remained unsettled. This was particularly true with regard to the role of the slave. The new Menandrian material did not provide any satisfactory analogue for Plautus' superlative scheming slave nor for another shorter slave role, that of the running, breathless bringer of bad or good news. Inspired by the new finds, many scholars studied the slave role again, but the conclusions varied widely during the two decades that followed. While some insisted, in their reading of the evidence and their conception of Greek or Roman originality, that the Greeks did not originate the scheming or running slave, others asserted with equal passion that Plautus could not originate any role, but could merely expand what already existed in the Greek model.1 More sober judgment just before and just after the second World War agreed that the Plautine slave did draw its inspiration from Greek New Comedy.2 The solid evidence, however, which would begin to remove this question from the realm of controversy, was lacking until the recent recovery of more Menander in the Bodmer papyri, first of the Dyskolos and now of the Aspis. I shall concentrate on an important