Irish Stout over at the Fumare blog refers to Nietzsche, quotes de Tocqueville, and asks a really good question:
"Our line of thought here is thus: if not only Nietzsche saw it, but Tocqueville too thought there was a kinship between Christianity and equality, there's probably something to it. And if there's something to it, might it not be the case that Christian peoples, so used to welcoming the 'manly and legitimate' version of equality into the house, are also, almost from mental habit, peculiarly liable to be oblivious when the ugly cousin (the 'debased taste for equality') arrives; and so both good and bad gain the threshold, if not indeed the run of the house?"
In answering his question I would have to say that Christians are peculiarly liable to be oblivious when the debased taste for equality arrives in our thinking, but of course this is due to no default of Christianity or Catholicism. While the Magisterial side of the Church is infallible, the human side of the Church is quite prone to error. Often these slight errors can be exacerbated as temptations that are disguised as goods. For example, Church officials, including the Pope have made statements on economic matters that have been used as justifications to support all sorts of liberal statist schemes. Much of Catholic Social Teaching is used in this manner. The political slogans of 'economic' and 'social' justice often carry egalitarian connotations of de Tocqueville's notion of "drag[ing] strong down to their level and which induces men to prefer equality in servitude to inequality in freedom."
In practice we see good notions taught by the Church like being a responsible employer turned into irrational and highly erroneous calls for minimum/living wages. We see the noble call to take care of our brothers and sisters in poverty turned into calls for government welfare. We see the call to take care of the elderly into calls for social security and medicare. These noble ideals are things that every Christian should freely adhere to but not be dragged down into doing by the state. Christ told Peter to feed his sheep. He didn't say subjugate your brothers into feeding His sheep.
Which leads us to disciples and their envy in Matthew 26:6-13:
"Now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of costly perfumed oil, and poured it on his head while he was reclining at table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant and said, 'Why this waste? It could have been sold for much, and the money given to the poor.' Since Jesus knew this, he said to them, 'Why do you make trouble for the woman? She has done a good thing for me. The poor you will always have with you; but you will not always have me. In pouring this perfumed oil upon my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Amen, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be spoken of, in memory of her.'"
This must be the first instance of fallible Christians using egalitarian arguments against their brethren out of envy. Naturally Christ rebukes. Note that He is not rebuking the noble concepts of equality like taking care of the poor, but the sinful practice of dragging down this strong servant of Christ into the mud of egalitarianism.