During the French Revolution, the ideal of equality was propagated, so people more and more tackled with the problem of poverty. On the one hand, Smith and Turgot, who influenced Condorcet, regarded inequality as indispensable for the prosperity of economy. This essay describes how Condorcet thought about poverty, and how his political economy was connected with the ideal of equality. Through considering it, we can understand the transformation of society from Ancien Régime where hierarchy and inequality existed to the period of the French Revolution.

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet （1743-1794） is known as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers. Like most of them, Condorcet lived in Ancien Régime, the regime that influenced his thought on economy, politics, and society. Nonetheless, unlike many Enlightenment thinkers, Condorcet lived in the period of the French Revolution. Through studying Condorcet, we can learn how the French Revolution affected economic discourses.

In January 2016, Prime Minister Abe announced his plan to promote “equal pay for equal work.” In the process, he generated “the political slogan that the regular-irregular inequality required ‘equal pay for equal work’” (Kanki, 2019, p.89). The government needed to “solve,” in other words, the “inequality” in the “treatment” of regular workers and irregular workers.

The slogan obviously assumes that there is a problem to be “solved.” In the process, it leaves unaddressed the details of the objectives in question and the policies proposed. It leaves unanalyzed the costs, benefits, and likely effectiveness of any measures involved. It leaves undisclosed who actually promoted the policy and why. Necessarily, it also leaves hidden what those undisclosed actors might actually be trying to accomplish through their policies.

Since 2016, the Japanese government has at least nominally promoted “evidence-based policy making” (EBPM) principles. The equal-pay-for-equal-work debate presents a near-perfect case for EBPM. Citizens need to know the substantive details of any policies proposed, and the logic and evidence behind them. Good governance dictates that the government invite critical examination and counter-proposals. EBPM principles would have promoted that process. Unfortunately, the government egregiously failed to follow those principles.

In the course of analyzing the government’s foray into the equal-pay-for-equal-work dispute,

I offer an introduction to EBPM principles. Note that were the government to take seriously those principles, it would need to explore the reasons behind the increased diversity of employment contracts across the developed world. In the process, it would probably also abandon terms like “difference (kakusa)” and “discrimination (sabetsu)” in discussing “regular” and “irregular” employment conditions.