Why is Equality desirable?

[Jacob Cliff]

Why is it? No emotional arguments; use only objective reasons please

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Why is it? No emotional arguments; use only objective reasons please

Asking for "objective arguments" when it comes to desirability pretty much misses the point. There is nothing in the material world that tells you "equality is desirable"; it's just that, well, people do desire equality. Or a larger share of the pie, anyway.

And socialism is not about "equality" anyway; while rationing exists there is no equality as people have different needs and circumstances, and when there is free access there is no equality as people are different.

[RedWorker]

And socialism is not about "equality" anyway; while rationing exists there is no equality as people have different needs and circumstances, and when there is free access there is no equality as people are different.

That is really what 'equality' means in this context, though.

[John Nada]

Entropy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_entropy). Can't argue with the laws of thermal dynamics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

In the universe, energy tends towards an equilibrium. For example, when a liquid evaporates from heat or a change in pressure, it also has a cooling effect. Pour some alcohol out, when it drys you'll notice the surface is cooler. This effect is used for refrigerators and swamp coolers. Iron eventually rusts due to oxidation from it's reaction with oxygen. Light some charcoal on fire, it releases heat and turns into CO2. Run a current through a conductor and some is lost as heat. Atoms decay or fuse, releasing energy and turning into another element.

This might apply to humans too. Unequal distribution of power. Will this lead to a new more stable state? Or will it blow up?

[Hit The North]

And socialism is not about "equality" anyway; while rationing exists there is no equality as people have different needs and circumstances, and when there is free access there is no equality as people are different.

Of course socialism is about much greater equality than present society and is about creating a society which is moving toward greater and greater social, political and material equality. This doesn't mean that individual differences won't continue to be expressed. But to deny the centrality of equality to the socialist project is to rip the heart out of it.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence that more equal societies are better environments in general for human beings:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Spirit-Level-Equality-Everyone/dp/0241954290

[consuming negativity]

what do you mean by equality?

[Hit The North]

what do you mean by equality?

Positively: Universal equality of access to the fruits of society, materially and culturally.
Negatively: an impediment on any individual or private interest to monopolise access to social goods and to enter into forced relationships of exploitation with others.

[Red Son]

We can't help the fact we're all going to die some day but we can make sure we aren't exploited, abused and taken for granted by an extreme minority of the wealthy and powerful during our brief time on this earth...if that makes sense?

[TheMask]

We can't help the fact we're all going to die some day but we can make sure we aren't exploited, abused and taken for granted by an extreme minority of the wealthy and powerful during our brief time on this earth...if that makes sense?

I could have not said it better myself
Well written my comrade!

Until the everlasting victory!
-Che

[Rafiq]

Why is it? No emotional arguments; use only objective reasons please

We do not concern ourselves with any abstract notion of "equality" - indeed, only the dishonest enemies of Communism have leveled such nonsense, that the Communists are for "equality" as some ridiculous abstract principle divorced from our present reality.

When we say we are for equality, we mean it entirely contextual to our current conditions - equality as the aufheben of already existing bourgeois civic equality. For example, it would be stupid to think that the idea that some people may receive different goods directly proportional to their tasks in a hypothetical Proletarian dictatorship is opposed to the ideas of Communism, - no one has argued this except the philistine proponents of vulgar liberal masturbation - liberal self congratulatory thought which cannot even conceptualize the self identification of other ideologies. When we speak of equality, we speak not of some kind of imposition because the idea sounds good, but the destruction of already existing perpetual impositions which prohibit that which would otherwise be equal. We seek the destruction of servility, we have argued nothing more: the destruction of real relations to production is not a means to an ends but the ends itself. Equality is a consequence of the struggle for proletarian dictatorship, not a cause of it.

But to prattle of the dichotomy of "equality and inequality" already enters the domain of barbarism, for the alters of Bourgeois civic values has already established its value towards the idea of equality - as a matter of fact, inequality is not something bourgeois ideology formally recognizes, as all are equal before the law.

That's why liberals ask us if we want to make everyone the same height or wear the same clothes: For them, we are already all equal where it matters, all other attempts toward equality would simply be an obstruction of nature. So again, no one (besides reactionaries) argues that equality is bad, the point is our disagreement as to what constitutes real equality. The Communists claim that, while recognizing formal equality/freedom as a prerequisite to real freedom and equality: Servility and privilege still exist so long as the social foundations for them exist.

We do not care about inequality as some kind of obstruction to a pleasant mathematical abstraction. We care about the implications of inequality.

[Rafiq]

And socialism is not about "equality" anyway; while rationing exists there is no equality as people have different needs and circumstances, and when there is free access there is no equality as people are different.

To an extent, this is true: but the problem is that you fail to recognize the idea of "equality" for what it is. It is not the Communists who affirmatively demand equality - again bourgeois ideology already incorporates the notion of equality in it. We simply defend it against the reaction. We want to supersede, not abolish, bourgeois-liberal civic equality.

There can be no talk of ideology demanding "equality" - only those which create the dichotomy of equality vs. inequality, which in effect argues for inequality. Those who oppose inequality, like those who are for equality alone, do so with the idea of it as a pure and worthless abstraction divorced from reality.

[Illegalitarian]

Equality is a rather vague term indeed.

As Rafiq says (kind of), equality isn't some abstract notion that we fight for, it is the consequence of proletarian dictatorship. It has very real implications and comes in the form of equality of access, equality of privilege that arises itself from the abolition of privilege based on race, sex, gender, class, or whatever have you.


Equality doesn't mean we all wear the same clothes and eat the same food and all live on some bland plain of existence, it means we're all free from structural oppression and can pursue the life we want inhibited by economic and social barriers. It's *real* equality of opportunity

[cyu]

Asking for "objective arguments" when it comes to desirability pretty much misses the point.


Exactly. Isn't "desire" an inherently subjective thing?

Why is genocide "undesirable"? No emotional arguments; use only objective reasons please.

Well, most people don't like to be murdered, but that's just their subjective opinion, so let's just ignore that, right?

[not a real person]

equality is desirable because without greater equality we can not have freedom.

freedom to do what one wants, is dependent on being able to live without want. an equal society would ensure that all are without want, and so are free to do what they want.

[Mr. Piccolo]

As others have posted, equality, if taken as meaning the lack of oppression or exploitative social relations, is a natural quality that humans have. Most humans don't like others lording over them, which explains why most exploitative systems must have some ideological mechanism to keep people in line mentally. If that fails, there is always force.

I do not support perfect material equality and most Leftists do not despite reactionary claims that we do. We want the equality that comes from ending exploitation, which under capitalism comes in the form of the wage system.

[Comrade #138672]

The inequality inherent in capitalist society is derived from the fact that capitalist society is a class society. As communists, we wish to abolish classes altogether, and, therefore, gain "equality", if you will.

But, to be fair, "equality" alone is a bourgeois concept. As communists, we want to transcend bourgeois ideology and rights. "Equality before the law" is simply not enough for us.

[David Warner]

Here's how Marx put it --

Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.

In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

[RedKobra]

From my point of view, all forms of inequality lead to concentrations of power. Concentrations of power advance the interests of those with said power and so a chain of compound accumulation of power is begun. If you live in an unequal society you're banking on the altruism of the powerful to not abuse their ever growing power. It seems ludicrous to me to live like that. Its much simpler to acknowledge that power begets more power and that that disparity in power dilutes whatever illusions of democracy you may have had.

If you want democracy, you need equality.