By Ted Belman

I recently wrote an article in which I tried to deal with the implications of the recent SC decision in Israel on education budgets or “priority areas”. Bill Narvey commented on it (below) and here is my response.

Thanks for this. Most of it I agree in the main.

1. I think we both recognize the tension between democracy and equality. If democracy means majority rule, when and to what extent do minority rights trump democracy?

2. We also recognize that in all democracies, governments reduce equality to achieve equality. It all depends on how you define equality. For instance we have progressive tax rates. ( or is it regressive?) i.e. higher tax rates for higher incomes is inherently unequal but it is done to create greater equality of net income. Wealth transfer in general serves this purpose as do all restrictions on capitalism.

3. Democracies make use of the use of super majorities for deciding issues considered more important.

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