easy_install unmet dependencies which already exist

Question

I am trying to use easy_install on ubuntu 14-04, but running fails due to a missing dependency on setuptools 3.3

$ easy_install
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/easy_install", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  ...
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 839, in resolve
    raise DistributionNotFound(req, requirers)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: The 'setuptools==3.3' distribution was not found and is required by the application

If I list what I have installed with pip, I can see that I have setuptools 17.1.1 installed

$ pip list | grep setuptools
setuptools (17.1.1)

I looked at the source for easy_install, and it's really simple.

#!/usr/bin/python
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'setuptools==3.3','console_scripts','easy_install'
__requires__ = 'setuptools==3.3'
import sys
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('setuptools==3.3', 'console_scripts', 'easy_install')()
    )

I then edited the file, and replaced all mentioned of setuptools==3.3 with setuptools=17.1.1

#!/usr/bin/python
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'setuptools==17.1.1','console_scripts','easy_install'
__requires__ = 'setuptools==17.1.1'
import sys
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('setuptools==17.1.1', 'console_scripts', 'easy_install')()
    )

It now works - but clearly that doesn't feel like the right way to fix the problem!

Questions

• Is this a bug with easy_install?
• Am I able to upgrade easy_install to resolve this?
• When I added the pip tag to this question, I see that it's listed as a replacement for easy_install. Am I able to replace easy_install with pip and it should just work?