Formal equality doctrine becomes a weapon against material equality
Evidence
To take the principle of equality before the law back into the vanished world of a bourgeois-constitutional order is to prohibit equality in the name of equality itself. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 959
Categorization
- DEFINE: Captures the paradox of formal equality used to block substantive equality claims.
- XREF: connects to: Formal legal equality substituted for material redistribution as a way to end reform. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 665; Formal legal equality cannot deliver justice without social equality — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 958; Formal equal right applied to unequal individuals necessarily produces inequality. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 416 (+11 more)
Broader Connections
- Formal legal equality substituted for material redistribution as a way to end reform.
#corroborates(0.92) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 665 - European continent substituted formal legal equality for real equality of condition
#expands(0.90) - Formal legal equality masks substantive inequality between rich and poor
#corroborates(0.90) - Formal legal equality obscures real inequality because equivalence as a legal norm ignores difference
#corroborates(0.88) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 786 - Formal legal equality cannot deliver justice without social equality
#corroborates(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 958 - Formal legal equality leaves substantive social inequality untouched
#corroborates(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 959 - Formal equal right applied to unequal individuals necessarily produces inequality.
#complicates(0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 416 - Law converts difference into sameness to enable formal equal treatment
#expands(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 82 - Legal equality before the law requires negating actual individuality
#expands(0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 793