According to one view, there is no "formal linking" between equality of opportunity and political structure, in the sense that there can be equality of opportunity in democracies, autocracies and in communist nations, although it is primarily associated with a competitive market economy and embedded within the legal frameworks of democratic societies. The benefit of equality of opportunity is to bring fairness to the selection process for coveted roles in corporations, associations, nonprofits, universities and elsewhere. Theory Outline of the concept In a factory setting, equality of opportunity is often seen as a procedural fairness along the lines of "if you assemble twice as many lamps, you'll be paid double" and in this sense the concept is in contrast to the concept of equality of outcome, which might require that all workers be paid similarly regardless of how many lamps they made.Īccording to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the concept assumes that society is stratified with a diverse range of roles, some of which are more desirable than others. There is surely equality of opportunity under the new order in the old nation. His predecessor again humbly began life in the shipping business. The coming President of France is the grandson of a shoemaker. It is an ideal which has become increasingly widespread in Western nations during the last several centuries and is intertwined with social mobility, most often with upward mobility and with rags to riches stories: It is sometimes conceived as a legal right against discrimination. Equal opportunity provisions have been written into regulations and have been debated in courtrooms. Generally, the terms equality of opportunity and equal opportunity are interchangeable, with occasional slight variations the former has more of a sense of being an abstract political concept while "equal opportunity" is sometimes used as an adjective, usually in the context of employment regulations, to identify an employer, a hiring approach, or the law. In the classical sense, equality of opportunity is closely aligned with the concept of equality before the law and ideas of meritocracy. It is being applied to increasingly wider areas beyond employment, including lending, housing, college admissions, voting rights, and elsewhere. The meaning of equal opportunity is debated in fields such as political philosophy, sociology and psychology. People with differing political viewpoints often view the concept differently. Differing political viewpoints Equal opportunity for all: "We fight God when our Social System dooms the brilliant clever child of a poor man to the same level as his father", British Admiral Jacky Fisher, Records (1919) Equal opportunity is central to the concept of meritocracy. The concept is applicable in areas of public life in which benefits are earned and received such as employment and education, although it can apply to many other areas as well. ![]() ![]() It is opposed to nepotism and plays a role in whether a social structure is seen as legitimate. Individuals should succeed or fail based on their efforts and not extraneous circumstances such as having well-connected parents. The idea is to remove arbitrariness from the selection process and base it on some "pre-agreed basis of fairness, with the assessment process being related to the type of position" and emphasizing procedural and legal means. Īccording to proponents of the concept, chances for advancement should be open to everybody without regard for wealth, status, or membership in a privileged group. For example, the intent of equal employment opportunity is that the important jobs in an organization should go to the people who are most qualified – persons most likely to perform ably in a given task – and not go to persons for reasons deemed arbitrary or irrelevant, such as circumstances of birth, upbringing, having well-connected relatives or friends, religion, sex, ethnicity, race, caste, or involuntary personal attributes such as disability, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified.
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