Emmanuel Goldstein's Book sums up the support for equality in this way:

The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittenly conscious of anything outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

Goldstein and his Book were fictional creations of George Orwell, but was he right about this? Let's take a look in the General Social Survey and see what people who support the redistribution of income - the closest to "all men shall be equal" which I've found among the GSS variables. Could these people be described as "the Low" or are they instead more likely to be "the Middle" or "the High"?

First let us take a look at intelligence. The GSS does not include an intelligence test, but the Wordsum variable is the best available proxy. It is the number of words the respondent knows from a ten-word vocabulary test. Relating Wordsum scores to support for governmental redistribution of income yields the following:

More intelligent people support income redistribution less. Those who support income redistribution are considerably more likely to be among "the Low" at least in intelligence. That such a trend exists is hardly surprising, as people of low intelligence are more likely to have low incomes and an interest in having some of the more intelligent people's income redistributed to them personally. The trend, however, is startlingly obvious and very strong.

Speaking of "strong", are the supporters of redistribution strong? Again, we have no strength tests or even self-reported athleticism data available. We do have a question which give us some idea of how strong a person might be - it asks whether the respondent has played any sports in the past year.

The differences are not as powerful as with the vocabulary score, but again they are clear - people who participate in sports are less supportive of equality. Another interesting question is whether the respondent ever approves of a man punching another man - perhaps the best GSS proxy for testosterone levels.

Here we see that the pacifists are more likely to support income redistribution.

In summary, the supporters of equality are less intelligent, less athletic and more meek than its opponents. If I wanted to be mean, I would summarize the findings in this way: equality is for the weak and stupid. Just this once, however, I'll be nice and only say that there really is something to what Emmanuel Goldstein wrote.