Conflict Between Liberty And Equality

The Declaration of Independence states “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Liberty and Equality are considered as rights of the people. Liberty is the state of being free from unjust restrictions while equality is the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities. Although some people say that they are closely related to each other, some states that liberty and equality conflict each other. The conflict between liberty and equality have been an issue in our society. The conflict between liberty and equality is characterized by how the founding fathers used these two concept to achieve virtuous …show more content…
In US history, it states “Democratic societies also expect another kind of balance: a compromise between liberty and equality. Complete liberty logically leads to inequality.” This portrays that one cannot be completely achieved without weakening the other. Jan Narveson, a famous philosopher, wrote an article on whether how much each equality and liberty should be enforce:
“Once we see the distinction between universal rights and egalitarian rights, we will, I think, see the wisdom of accepting universal rights to liberty and rejecting universal rights to enforced equalities. Comparing liberty and equality, liberty wins.”(Liberty and Equality— A Question of Balance? P. …show more content…
In the article of “Liberty, equality aren’t mutually exclusive” by Danielle Allen, she states that liberty and equality supports and sustain each other. She says that people have come to believe that liberty and equality affected our policy debate. She believes that liberty and equality strengthens each other which will solve our problem. She states: “Among citizen men, in Athens, Rome and America, equality and liberty were concepts understood to support and sustain each other. Bonds of political and social equality among the citizens were necessary to forge institutions that would protect each individually from domination by the others and all together from domination by external powers.” Allen also says that “centuries-long fluidity of analysis around the concepts of liberty and equality” disappeared during communism. Allen uses socialism and communism to describe what created the problem between liberty and equality but she strongly believes that liberty and equality is compatible with liberty. Furthermore, in the video “Libertarianism Explained: Liberty & Equality - Learn Liberty,” James Otteson states “ The first is formal equality, equality that comes from the form of institutions. An example of formal equality is equality before the law: all laws apply equally to everyone. Formal equality is a central tenet