Culture and Equality (PDF)

All major western countries today contain groups that differ in
their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the
right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to
this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges
the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement
of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century.

Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural
diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities
free to associate in pursuit of their distinctive ends within the
limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is
rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among
whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka,
Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to
them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails
to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they
propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by
granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming'
their value, and by providing them with special privileges or
subsidies.

In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique
of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism
tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these
are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may
actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be
genuinely beneficial.