Freedom and Equality: The Everlasting Enemies

Nugget by Will Durant

Dec 06, 2024

This nugget comes from the book The Lessons of History (by Will and Ariel Durant). This book was recommended by Naval Ravikant. And David Senra (host of the Founders Podcast) also covered it on his podcast. So I decided to read it, and it’s so full of gems!

This is a great book [The Lessons of History] I really like that summarizes some of the larger themes of history; it’s very incisive. And unlike most history books, it’s actually really small, and it covers a lot of ground.
- Naval Ravikant (from the book - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant)

In this letter, I share with you one of my favorite passages from the book!

👤 Doers

💡Nugget

🟠 Will Durant:
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.
Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire.
To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.
Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups.
….
Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization. Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual, and makes the strong stronger, the weak relatively weaker, than before. Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty per cent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest. Life and history do precisely that, with a sublime injustice reminiscent of Calvin’s God.
…
Since wealth is an order and procedure of production and exchange rather than an accumulation of (mostly perishable) goods, and is a trust (the “credit system”) in men and institutions rather than in the intrinsic value of paper money or checks, violent revolutions do not so much redistribute wealth as destroy it. There may be a redivision of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as in the old.
The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.
👉 Book - The Lessons of History (by Will and Ariel Durant)

Paul Graham has also shared an insightful perspective on Economic Inequality…

🟠 Paul Graham:
Lots of people talk about economic inequality. Nearly all say it is bad if economic inequality increases, and that it would be better if it decreased.

But economic inequality per se is not bad. It has multiple causes. Many are bad, but some are good.

For example, high incarceration rates and tax loopholes are bad things that increase economic inequality.

But startups also increase economic inequality. A founder whose startup succeeds will end up with stock worth a lot of money.

And unlike high incarceration rates and tax loopholes, startups are on the whole good.

Since economic inequality per se is not bad, we should not attack it. Instead we should attack the bad things that cause it.

For example, instead of attacking economic inequality, we should attack poverty.

Attacking economic inequality would be doubly mistaken. It would harm the good as well as the bad causes. But even worse, it would be an ineffective way to attack the bad causes.

We will not do a good job of fixing the bad causes of economic inequality unless we attack them directly.

But if we fix all the bad causes of economic inequality, we will still have increasing levels of it, due to the increasing power of technology.
👉 Essay - Economic Inequality (short version)

🟠 My Personal Notebook of Nuggets

📁 All insights in this letter are saved and classified in a searchable database, which (as of November 2024) contains more than 2,400 timeless insights (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs).

I call it the “Doers Notebook” and I’ve opened it for anyone who wants it.

🤔 Why did I build this?

As the Latin motto goes, “A chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.” And since it’s all 🔎 searchable, you only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!

For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word “sales” and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other individuals.

It’s like having a 🧠 second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.

And this is extremely valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.

“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”
- Naval Ravikant

I made a video where I went through the list of insights i got from searching the keywords “sales” and “creative”. So, if you wanna get better at sales or learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then check out the video below: