Equivalence – The Binding Chaos Lexicon

The idea that all members of a society are entitled to equivalent benefit from the society and no one should be valued by standards of achievement which others have greater ability to attain. No contribution to society is inherently of greater value than another although the degree of effort may be. This is an idea which supports exosocialism.

Expanded explanation

Equivalence is the replacement Marsh offers for equality, and it moves the question from what people are to what they receive and how they are valued. Three claims sit in the definition. Everyone is entitled to equivalent benefit from the society they belong to, which is about distribution rather than about sameness. Nobody should be valued by standards of achievement which others are better placed to attain, which rules out any single scale of merit, since a scale that some can climb more easily is a ranking of position dressed as a ranking of worth. And no contribution is inherently more valuable than another, though effort may differ, which detaches value from output. The last of the three is the one that does the most work, because it dissolves the justification for most existing hierarchy. If a surgeon's contribution is not inherently worth more than a carer's, then differential reward has to be defended on some other ground, and the usual ground is exactly the achievement standard the second claim rules out. Marsh marks it as supporting exosocialism, which places it on the opposite side from endosocialism rather than from equality specifically. The realism is stated too. Endogroups will never produce equity or social equivalence, because the machinery of an endogroup is a machinery for ranking, so equivalence is not a reform available to a structure organized around an endo-ideal.

In Heather Marsh’s words

Marsh detaches value from output, which removes the usual justification for differential reward.

“Endogroups will never produce equity or social equivalence”
The Creation of Me, Them and Us

Examples

No single scale: A standard of achievement that some are better placed to meet ranks position rather than worth, so no such standard should determine value.
Contribution detached from value: If no contribution is inherently worth more than another, differential reward loses its usual justification.
Not available to an endogroup: A structure organized around ranking cannot produce equivalence, which makes this a claim about structure rather than about policy.

How others use it

The distinction between equality and equity is now standard in policy language, where equity means allocating according to need rather than identically. Marx's principle of from each according to ability and to each according to need is the closest classical formulation of the distributive half. Michael Young coined meritocracy in 1958 as a satire and Michael Sandel has recently revived the critique of merit as a ranking of luck, which addresses Marsh's second claim. What has fewer counterparts is the third. Almost every distributive theory retains some account of contribution mattering, and denying that any contribution is inherently more valuable than another puts equivalence outside the range most egalitarian theories operate in.