More than any other nation, the U.S. is haunted by the idea of equality. True, the French once talked gloriously of egalite. But, having pulled back from their revolution, they feel no more committed to egalite than to fraternite. To the English, equality comes under the heading of abstract ideas. As Gladstone once remarked, "If there are two things on earth that John Bull hates, they are abstract propositions and the Pope." Matthew Arnold regarded inequality as the religion of England.
In America, so powerful is the democratic rhetoric of equality that few people...
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