Once, freedom and equality went hand in hand and achieved the initial victory of capitalism over feudalism. However, with the further development of capitalism, the balance and harmony between the two values have been broken, and the roaring capitalism "shattered the feudal inequality based on family background and created new huge social differences".
The principle of freedom allows people to reasonably and legally own the means of production and engage in production and trade activities. Due to the differences in talent, efforts and opportunities, there will inevitably be polarization between the rich and the poor. The excessive gap between the rich and the poor continues to spread between generations, which leads to the inequality of people's starting point, which makes some people lose the conditions for giving full play to their talents and finally lose the freedom they should enjoy. In view of this situation, a considerable number of egalitarians believe that only "political equality", that is, "everyone is equal before the law", is far from enough. This is only formal equality. To achieve substantive equality, we must achieve economic equality, which requires the state to intervene in the economy and implement redistribution. The question is, if the wealth of the rich is legal income, what reason does the state have to occupy a part for redistribution? This undoubtedly violates the freedom of wealth owners. Can we sacrifice freedom in the name of equality? As a result, there are differences and arguments between political philosophers and theorists. Some people think that equality cannot be bought at the expense of giving up freedom and violating human rights. Some people insist on equality first and think that only by achieving equality can there be real freedom; Some people not only do not accept extreme positions, but also are not satisfied with the expediency of the golden mean, trying to prove the internal consistency of freedom and equality. However, no matter how elaborate and complicated the theoretical analysis is, it is still impossible to give consideration to both aspects in reality.
This just proves that equality and freedom are not always closely linked. Sometimes there may be unequal freedom. Prisoners in prison are equal, but they are not free. As Montesquieu said: "Under the political system, everyone is equal. Under an authoritarian regime, everyone is equal. In the Republic of China, everyone was equal because everyone was' everything'; In an authoritarian country, everyone is equal because everyone is' nothing'. " More often, what we should experience is an unequal freedom. People are unequal, but they all have certain freedoms. The difference is that some people have more freedom and some people have less freedom. This unequal freedom may be an imperfect freedom, but it is much better than equality without freedom or without freedom at all-as long as this freedom is not too divorced from equality.
At present, freedom may be easier to achieve than equality, and equality can arouse people's strong emotions more than freedom. However, excessive pursuit of equality, especially at the expense of freedom, may eventually lead to slavery. As the French scholar Tocqueville worried, people's "enthusiasm for equality may reach the point of fanaticism ... people will strive for equality like trophies and cling to equality like treasures that have been taken away. The passion for equality completely controls people's hearts and expands and spreads in them. At this time, you can't warn them that blindly pursuing equality will lose the most precious interests, because they simply won't listen; You can't point out to them that paying so much attention to equality will lose their freedom, because they only have equality in their eyes, or the most enviable thing they see between heaven and earth is equality. " They want to enjoy equality in freedom, and when they can't, they want to enjoy equality in slavery. China's traditional thought of "not suffering from poverty but suffering from inequality" since ancient times is also a typical embodiment of attaching importance to equality and neglecting freedom.
Of course, too much respect for freedom and neglect of equality will inevitably bring disadvantages. Too much freedom of one person will often infringe on the freedom of others, which will eventually lead to the great disparity between the rich and the poor in the economic field. French scholar Desaimis said: "The establishment of social laws is by no means to make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. On the contrary, it is to protect the weak from the strong and guarantee all their rights. " This undoubtedly proves the social justice embodied by equality.
Any sound society pursues the combination of freedom and equality. However, "there is no natural balance between freedom and equality, and there is no way to maximize them." As early as19th century, when capitalism was just beginning to flourish, Tocqueville clearly pointed out that the tension between freedom and equality was "inevitable and impossible to eradicate". When there is a contradiction between the two, as we can see now, freedom should generally be a higher priority value, but at the same time it should not go beyond the "basic boundary of equality", because completely unequal freedom is unacceptable to any normal person, and completely equal freedom is often difficult to achieve.