There are three forms of equality: equality of outcome, of opportunity, and of perception. Equality of perception is the most basic: it dictates that for people to be equal, each person should be perceived as being of equal worth. Equality of opportunity dictates that all people should have the same opportunities open to them if they put out the effort this is a central tenet of the “American Dream.” The final form of equality, equality of outcome, attempts to “level the playing field” by forcing people into certain roles and dictates that all individuals should tend towards the mean this form of equality is evident in socialist theory.

America has enacted laws that are based on equality of outcome to attempt to ensure that “minorities” and women have access to equal pay and to remove glass ceilings, but while these programs have repaired some of the damage, paraphrasing Milton Friedman, equality of outcome leaves most people without equality and without opportunity. This is because forced equality is not equality and only hides the real issue of inequality based on perceptions.

Equality is not saying that all people are physically and mentally equal, nobody would bet an average teenager could win a game of basketball against a professional player, nor can every six-year-old be a physicist because human beings are not inherently equal. However, “true equality” says that potentially everyone should have the same opportunities, that is to say, that potentially the toddler could play professional basketball and potentially the six-year-old could become a future Einstein regardless of superficial characteristics. While these two people may not actually be able to achieve their dreams, this does not mean they should be limited by what people perceive they are capable of. This is equality of perception.

Unlike equality of outcome, equality of perception creates equality of opportunity by dictating that all people should be allowed the same opportunities even if they aren’t capable of realizing them. This allows people to reach their own plateaus without unfair external pressures. However, when one attempts to use equality of outcome to create opportunity, one must take away opportunities from one person to give them to another, rather than allowing both individuals to reach their own, personal, peaks. This is not always a bad thing, during the civil rights era it was an important move to integrate America’s divided society; however, it was a first step, and only a first step. America must move beyond this first step to continue to answer its call as the “land of opportunity.”

Of course, many factors come into account throughout individual lives that change an individual’s capacity for different activities. Equality of perception requires that one realize the way we perceive people based on bias should not limit their opportunities because it does not reflect their abilities. This means that with equality of perception no human being is artificially kept from achieving their goals based on skin color, religion, national origin, or class. Equality of perception cannot be legislated, it can only be taught, but it will create freedom and lead the way to equality of opportunity, but focusing on equality of outcome just limits the freedoms upon which America was founded.

One of the many ideas that are prevalent in this movie is the idea that each person is just a part of a larger whole, that although you could try to be individual, it was not in your best interests to do so. This idea is shown both in the beginning of the movie and when Chaplin was “forced” through social pressure to strike. The entire factory sequences showed how the average American worker was just treated as replaceable labor in the 1920′s and 1930′s the only concern of the boss was the ability of the workers to keep up with quotas. The mechanical device that fed Chaplin shows just how far some people would go to get that little extra profit at the expense of the workers well being.

The American dream is also a prominent feature of the movie, Chaplin’s American Dream was a small shack with a puddle out back, saying that is is not how much you have that is what matters but what it means to you. The American dream has been prominent throughout American literature for hundreds of years and this movie is no exception. Through the use of comedy Chaplin portrays the American dream just as Algers does, something that is attainable with a little hard work. This idea was especially important at the time the movie was made.

The last major theme is about the difficulty of life during those years, food and jobs were hard to come by, and as Chaplin shows us jail was preferable to the hectic and dangerous city streets. At the time of the great depression Americans had to fight for what little they had, and as the movie showed many people went hungry. However this movie glorifies the struggle of the poor rather than vilifying them for stealing food to survive. By glorifying the struggle the movie takes on yet another social issue: when the poor steal to eat it is not criminal, just survival.