Equalizing Opportunities for Human Development (in One Country)

In the past twenty-five years, egalitarian political philosophers have acknowledged the importance of injecting personal responsibility into egalitarian theory. In brief, the ethically attractive objective is to equalize opportunities for desirable conditions, such as health and earning capacity, rather than equalizing health status or earning capacities, across the members of a society. I propose that educational achievement, quality adjusted years of life (QALYs), and income are the three most important inputs into human development, and I then outline precisely how a country can use its national budget to equalize opportunities among its citizens for educational achievement and for QALYs, and can use its fiscal system to equalize opportunities for income. I present the results of two of these computations for the United States. The paper next addresses the political feasibility of implementing such programs. It concludes with a discussion of the data that are necessary to perform these computations, and of the problem of equalizing opportunities across countries for human development.