Natural inequalities
Topic: Equality and Social Justice · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 3 "Equality"
Meaning
Natural inequalities are differences between people that come from their different inborn abilities and talents. For a long time they were treated as fixed and impossible to change. The idea is now contested for two reasons. First, many differences once called "natural" were really social prejudices. Second, technology can now make up for many physical limits.
Example
Some people are born with a stronger gift for music or sport than others, so not everyone can become an ace cricketer. But calling women the "weaker sex", or the colonial claims about Africans that were used to justify slavery, were prejudices passed off as natural. Technology has also changed "natural" limits: wheelchairs, computers for blind people and the work of Stephen Hawking show that disability need not decide what a person can achieve.
Don't confuse with
- Socially produced inequalities: these come from unequal opportunity or exploitation, such as caste or gender discrimination. They reflect a society's values and can be reduced.
Related concepts
- Equality of opportunity
- Equality of outcome
- Meritocracy
- Socially produced inequalities
- Inequalities of choice and circumstance