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On the eve of America's 250th, a caution that as we had enemies then (though to be honest, we had more in common with those redcoats than we do with the sinister people we're dealing with today), we have them today as well, and they are likely worse than you think.

With all the "equality" language coming from the Mamdani wing of the Democratic Party these days, and in light of the Mayor's speech today:

This is why M.E. Bradford (whom the neocons, who despise people on the right, helped defeat when Ronald Reagan nominated him to head the National Endowment for the Humanities) described the concept of equality as "the antonym of every conservative principle," akin to what Edmund Burke called the "armed doctrine" of the French Revolution.

Governments and ideologues love it, because they can always expand its meaning and with it, their own power. They love it in particular since full equality can never be reached, and therefore it can continue in perpetuity to justify more and more intrusive power grabs.

One of the 20th century's best-known philosophers on the subject was the execrable John Rawls, author of A Theory of Justice, which generations of hapless college students have been forced to read.

In the Ron Paul Curriculum I spend a good deal of time on a systematic review of Rawls's ideas, and there is too much to say about them to do them justice in an email.

Here I'll say only this: in addition to Rawls's principle of "fair equality of opportunity," the priority he places on equality gives rise to what he calls his "difference principle": social and economic inequality may be tolerated only to the extent that it benefits the least advantaged.

For example, it is acceptable for physicians to be paid an above-average salary because if they weren't, they might not bother becoming physicians in the first place, and it surely helps the least advantaged for there to be physicians around. So those salaries can remain.

Notice that in this framework you are not entitled to the fruits of your labor. You have no strict right to them. Your salary is tolerated because that arrangement most benefits people who are strangers to you.

Now if Rawls were consistent, his calls for equality would transcend national borders, which in his system are morally irrelevant. But he brushes off any such suggestion. In other words, Americans according to Rawls are not morally obligated to disgorge their wealth to the point of becoming comparable to Kenya.

The Mises Institute's David Gordon speculates that Rawls allows this inconsistency -- that we must press for equality within countries but not between countries -- because the intellectual class he sought to court and to whose cocktail parties he craved invitations favor only so much egalitarianism: they aren't about to give up their wine and cheese for anyone in Ghana, no matter what moral posturing they may do in public.

One might likewise wonder if the institution of the family might need to be abolished under Rawls's system: isn't the family an incubator of inequality, after all, and isn't it a case of the kind of luck that Rawls hated? (In other words, you did nothing to deserve your educated and wealthy parents, so why should you be entitled to the fruits of your privileged upbringing?)

Rawls even poses the question. "Is the family to be abolished then? Taken by itself and given a certain primacy, the idea of equality of opportunity inclines in this direction."

(Are you starting to become more sympathetic to M.E. Bradford?)

But don't worry! Rawls assures us that there is no particular "urgency to take this course."

Why, thank you, your majesty, for generously allowing us to keep our families!

These are poisonous and anti-social ideas in the extreme -- but I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that.

And whether we triumph against them will go a long way toward deciding whether we will be celebrating the next 250 years.

Tom Woods

P.S. Fifteen minutes from now (at 5pm Eastern) is the last of our calls about the outstanding Low Stress Options program that my folks rave about, and in fact at midnight the price will rise permanently. This call is entirely Q&A.

In 2026 Dave Ramsey isn't going to cut it. You need to grow faster than the Fed can destroy you.

Register for the final call at this link; if you read this too late you can also use that link to sign up for the program.

And this week you also get Woods's juicy bonuses, listed below -- just forward your receipt to bonuses@tomwoods.com. 

-- My first six months of trading, with my commentary: every move I made and why, things I would do differently today, etc. (Even though you're understandably nosy and want to look at this first, go through the training before you do so the video will make sense to you.)

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-- In-person event at Troy's house in Florida in September: existing members will have to pay for that event but if you join through me this week you can attend for free, and I'll be there, too

To get my bonuses, forward your receipt to bonuses@tomwoods.com.

Again, click here to attend our final call.






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