Socialism and the Harrison Bergeron Problem

Hrishikesh Joshi

Oct 29, 2026

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1. Harrison Bergeron

Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron” begins like this:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General…

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

Lest we get any ideas, this is meant as a dystopian warning, not an instruction manual. Would you want to live in such a world? I wouldn’t, and we can go further: reasonable people should do whatever is in their power to prevent this dystopian future. But maybe this is a moot point—who is clamoring for such a society? Perhaps no one, at least explicitly.

Yet, on closer inspection, this sort of setup seems to be entailed by the socialist version of equality of opportunity, defended notably by the late analytic Marxist philosopher G. A. Cohen. Cohen regards this as the “correct egalitarian principle,” which he describes as follows:

What I would call socialist equality of opportunity treats the inequality that arises out of native differences as a further source of injustice, beyond that imposed by unchosen social backgrounds, since native differences are equally unchosen…Socialist equality of opportunity seeks to correct for all unchosen disadvantages, disadvantages, that is, for which the agent cannot herself reasonably be held responsible, whether they be disadvantages that reflect social misfortune or disadvantages that reflect natural misfortune.

[A bit of background: this is the strongest principle of equality of opportunity that he considers. The first is “bourgeois” equality of opportunity, which forbids formal and informal restrictions based on gender, race, class, etc. A feudal system thus would be in violation of this principle, if, for example, a serf could not own land. The second is “left-liberal” equality of opportunity, which seeks to equalize the effects of social class and inherited wealth. Thus, for example, someone should be able to attend medical school if they took the right classes, got good grades, and did well on the MCAT, even if, say, their parents cannot afford the tuition. This principle then underlies institutions like public schooling, need-based scholarships, financial aid, and other forms of social assistance. The socialist principle goes further: it seeks to eliminate inequalities resulting from differences in natural/genetic endowment.]

But what is under the scope of the term ‘inequality’? Cohen’s focus is on material inequality: basically, income, in the first instance. He writes: “under socialist equality of opportunity income differences obtain when they reflect nothing but different individual preferences, including income/leisure preferences.” Thus, in this scheme, nobody makes more than anyone else because they are more naturally talented at something—differences in income reflect only differences in hours worked. Hence, LeBron James or Taylor Swift or endowed chairs at Yale would make no more money than me, assuming we put in the same number of hours working on any given day.

So far, so good, but why restrict the scope of ‘inequality’ to income? We care about many things besides income, after all. We care about status, social relationships, the nature of our work, and much else besides. Indeed, many of us will sacrifice much by way of money for these other goods.

Speaking for myself, I am aware that corporate lawyers, investment bankers, or software engineers make a lot more money than I do. But I wouldn’t voluntarily trade my job for theirs. I feel no envy or resentment here. I am paid in flexibility and the opportunity to work with philosophical ideas, which I value (far) more than the extra cash. What’s the extra cash going to get me? A nicer car, bigger house, and first-class travel, maybe. But I don’t care about that stuff that much—I’ll take the economy flights and the second-hand Ford Escape, if it means I can do philosophy.

These observations bring out the fact that some jobs will be more desirable (for many people) than others. Compare: artist vs latrine cleaner; Oxford professor vs coal miner. Cohen, in his book, illustrates the principles of socialism by means of a camping trip. An ideal camping trip, he says, would be organized around socialist principles, and then the question this raises for him is whether society as a whole ought to be so organized. But a stray remark he makes in this discussion is telling:

Of course, not everybody likes camping trips. I do not myself enjoy them much, because I’m not outdoorsy, or, at any rate, I’m not outdoorsy overnight-without-a-mattress-wise. There’s a limit to the outdoorsiness to which some academics can be expected to submit: I’d rather have my socialism in the warmth of All Souls College than in the wet of the Catskills, and I love modern plumbing.

It seems that we are not to expect Cohen himself to work as a latrine cleaner or coal miner in our ideal society—he will be at All Souls College. But why? Is it because his talents for philosophy are so great that it would be unreasonable for us to ask him to be a janitor or such? Isn’t this unearned privilege? What if many thousands of people would likewise have their socialism in the warmth of All Souls College, instead of having to do unpleasant physical work? If Cohen’s superior skill at philosophy makes him the one who deserves the job, we have a problem. After all, Cohen’s skills are either a result of his unearned social privileges or his unearned natural talent or both. But inequality of outcome (in this case, the cushy Oxford position) owing to such factors is an injustice, on his own view.

What must Cohen say to the latrine cleaner or coal miner who would rather have worked at All Souls? “Sorry, you’re just not smart enough”? To truly equalize the outcomes here, the representative person must in some sense be indifferent to working at All Souls or working as a latrine cleaner. But that would mean that the latrine cleaner’s income (or material standard of living) has to be significantly higher than Cohen’s to compensate for the unpleasantness of the work.

For most people, all other things equal, working as an artist, writer, professor, crafts maker, gardener, etc., is going to be much more appealing than working as a latrine cleaner, coal miner, plumber, etc. But that means, in a socialist society, these latter forms of work must come with much greater compensation. Otherwise, why would people freely choose to do these latter forms of work? So, in the socialist utopia, Oxford professors must enjoy a significantly lower material standard of living (income, housing, what have you) than janitors. Imagine, for a moment, the Oxford janitor living in a mansion and flying first class, while Cohen shares a bunk bed in a large common dormitory, scraping by on beans and rice. Is this what socialist academics envision in their utopia? If yes, that’s fine, but let’s be honest about it.

Now, the natural Cohenite response here will be that if our motivations were suitably modified, we wouldn’t ask for higher compensation in return for more demanding work—that is a capitalistic attitude, after all. But the above-quoted passage gives it away: Cohen wants his socialism in the warmth of All Souls, not out in the coal mines. Since Cohen presumably has these idealized motivations (and if not, he ought to work on himself!), shouldn’t he volunteer for the coal mines?

Humans also deeply care about status. Even money is largely about status. Why do some people buy Rolexes and Ferraris? A $20 Casio watch tells time better than a Rolex (the quartz advantage). And when you’re on the I-10, the speed limit is 75 mph for a Ferrari just as much as a Ford Escape. People don’t buy Ferraris to go faster or Rolexes to have a more reliable chronometer—they buy these things to display wealth, which is a way to gain status.

But status is granted in many ways. People gain status for their athletic ability, their voices, their charisma, their looks, and much else besides. Suppose Usain Bolt and Joe Schmoe train equally hard for the 100-meter sprint. Bolt wins, and gains status—he’s given the medal, becomes a celebrity, has many adoring fans, etc. Nothing for Schmoe. But now this inequality in status is due to differences in natural talents. How do we compensate Schmoe for this?

Or suppose Bella and Chad are naturally good looking—symmetric features, what have you. Chad is also 6'3. So, Bella and Chad attract lots of potential romantic partners. Brutta and Chud (5'5) were not so lucky—the DMs are empty, the potential dates have a lot going on this week. How are they to be compensated? Romantic relationships are, after all, one of the important goods in life for many people—so it would seem arbitrary not to include them under the scope of the equality of opportunity principle. Will there be state-mandated pairing programs, so that all effects of luck are neutralized?

Besides romance, facial attractiveness has lots of other advantages for how people treat us. And it’s not just a matter of socialization—even infants, it turns out, prefer to look at more attractive faces. So we can go further: (conventionally) attractive people must be paired with (conventionally) unattractive mates to equalize all these other disadvantages that the latter face. The former must take one for the team, as it were.

The level of intrusiveness and social control it would take to equalize the effects of all such factors will not be much different from the work of Vonnegut’s Handicapper General. Or to put it another way, merely ensuring material equality will allow for large inequalities in social status of various kinds, and much of this will be due to factors outside of our control. So to genuinely satisfy the socialist equality of opportunity principle, we must enter into something like Vonnegut’s dystopia.

Humans, as they stand, are status-seeking creatures. Imagine we do come to a society where status, recognition, and all other such social goods are equally distributed. It’s hard not to imagine our drives being completely sapped in such a scenario. Artists, philosophers, inventors, songwriters do their work at least in part for some sort of recognition. If nothing we achieved (and isn’t achievement a function of social situation and natural talents?) ever resulted in any form of social status, I think we would lapse into a form of learned helplessness.

Nietzsche observes in his Nachlass, The Will to Power (§125):

For this is the doctrine preached by life itself to all that has life: the morality of development. To have and to want to have more—growth, in one word—that is life itself. In the doctrine of socialism there is hidden, rather badly, a “will to negate life”; the human beings…that think up such a doctrine must be bungled. Indeed, I should wish that a few great experiments might prove that in a socialist society life negates itself, cuts off its own roots. The earth is large enough and man still sufficiently unexhausted; hence such a practical instruction and demonstratio ad absurdum would not strike me as undesirable, even if it were gained and paid f