Egalitarianism

[MrT]

One of the problems that I have with the left in general is a central foundation on the philosophical and political doctrine of Egalitarianism. This holds that everyone one is equal and, moreover, that they deserve to be treated so. This immediately gives rise to a simple question: why? what is it that makes this philosophy necessarily correct?
A similar objection has been raised before in this forum, initially seeming to point out the left's fetishisation of the working-class (here http://www.revleft.com/vb/philosophical-basis-t28515/index.html?p=431792 ) but I started a new one because I did not find a satisfying enough answer, which made me curious as to if there was one. I'm going to use it anyway to analyse some of the people of the left's responses.


Simple. I don't want to be bossed around by the ruling class(es), and the only way to ensure that won't happen is that nobody is bossed around.

Why not rise through the ranks yourself? what has made you choose this particular path, the one that sets you the task of rallying 'the masses'?


Wage-slavery is degrading...therefore we should abolish it!

Would not a more accurate statement be 'Wage-slavery is degrading... therefore an intelligent man would resist it!' why the insistence on group force?


Peter Kropotkin in his essay Anarchist Morality (http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/kropotkin/anmorality/) came to a very basic and simple conclusion to how we should conduct ourselves. Simply, do not do what you would not have done to yourself.

It's an extremly basic, and even idealistic idea but it's extremly effective if applied by people. Would George Bush like to have his family bombed? Would the factory boss like to be exploited by someone? Of course they wouldn't which makes these actions unjustified.

It could be that standards of interaction with each other are determined by how we feel about our actions. Would I want to have my things stolen. No? Then it doesn't follow logically why someone else would.

This could be a basis for how we feel about society. Working class people are oppressed and exploited in the most vile ways. Can this be justified? The answer is no.

Now this is quite interesting, 'Simply, do not do what you would not have done to yourself.'? This moral justification or 'proof' of the correctness and necessity of egalitarianism, (even having the bad taste to incorporate 'logic' into it) seems steeped in christian sentiment, specifically LK6:31 'Do for others just what you want them to do for you.' This becomes a tad ironic when it's noted that Religion is a sub-forum of this boards's 'opposing ideologies' section. Surely when something as wide-reaching as religion is refuted, the wheedling out of it all its subtle influences has first to done if it is to be treated as an 'opposing ideology'. However, this idea does not seem to me even to be a subtle one.
In that thread someone attempts to combine the philosophy of Nietzsche with egalitarianism.. and fails. The two are irretrievably antagonistic. It seems to me that the reason why the poster tries to pair the two is because for some reason he holds a mysterious prejudice for some form of leftism, feels floored by Nietzsche's argument and as a resolve, attempts to make their causes seem similar, and in doing so, radically misunderstands what little Nietzsche he has read. But this is only an angry digression.
As well as my first question, is there anybody who is part of the left but whose political ideology is not 'justified' by egalitarianism? My objection seems an elementary one, one which every leftist must have encountered at some point

[LSD]

One of the problems that I have with the left in general is a central foundation on the philosophical and political doctrine of Egalitarianism. This holds that everyone one is equal and, moreover, that they deserve to be treated so.

Actually I'd say that egalitarianism asserts the latter rather than the former. That is, egalitarianism, as a political concept, is a practical paradigm rather than an explanatory one. To the egalitarian it genuinely doesn't matter whether people are indeed "equal to each other"; all that matters is that society treat them equally.

I think the error you're making is in assuming that those two concepts must be linked. That equal treatment by society must be founded on a conception of humanity as fundamentally equal. I think that's a backwards (albeit unfortunately common) way of looking at things.

Human beings exist within a social matrix, individual beings constitute atomic elements of that matrix. Each element is both indivisible and unique; from a structural perspective, our civilization is actually rather simplistic.

Now, the reality of human interpersonal bonds get much much messier than that simplistic overview would suggest, but the broad outline holds. Each individual member of society has an equal share of societal interest because he holds an equal share of societal interest. Society only exists to bennefit the individuals that compose it, as optimally as possible. Therefore the ideal social paradigm is one which maximizes in every direction.

This is a tad more mathematical than one is used to getting in a discussion on social sciences, but we're dealing with a fundamental issue here so it's useful to stick with basics. Individual human beings constitute the natural class of our society, full stop. And like any natural class, humanity is viable as a hash unit in computation, meaning that what's good for one person is generally good for another.

All of which leads us to the conclusion that a person's entitlements from society emerge not from any natural resevoir of quantitative persobal "talent", but of binary membership in that category called human society.

If you're part of society, society must look out for you. What you do within that is entirely up to you. Your "superiority", "inferiority", or "equality" is wholly irrelevent.


Why not rise through the ranks yourself?

Why not, indeed! Class society naturally encourages attempts at status shifts.

And many, many, many people over the centuries have tried exactly that which you propose. Most of them failed, of course, but a good number achieved. Generation after generation there have been stories of "new money" and "overnight billionaires". No one ever said that the class system was frozen.

But it's nonetheless pretty solid, and it only lets in so many, so often. The point of "group force", as you put it, is to circumvent that bottleneck and impose a new system from above. It's the reason the bourgeoisie overthrew the arisotcracy at Bastille. It's the reason the United States declared itself independent.

Washington and Jefferson could have tried to rise through the ranks of British society. Both were, in fact, from respectable houses. Washington was even a Lieutenant General in the Colonial Army. But they decided that they (and their interests, which psychologically are really one in the same) could be better served by "instituting new government". So they threw out the British and established a new country with themselves in charge.

"Group force" worked! And it helped to inspire a liberal awakening across the European world.

Political revolution isn't about getting a job, it's about remaking the entire order of things. It's about re-crafting the very foundations of society. That's a pretty big undertaking and one that needs to be done every time to time. And indeed usually is only occurs when all other, easier, avenues of change, have been exhausted.

Societies pursue radical revolution when their institutions are no longer capable of serving their interests regardless of how they are organized. We are radically approaching such a state in the first world.

Now if the state of the world doesn't interest you, you can sit at home and watch American Idol all day. Abstinence is always an option. But "group force" will go on. "Group force" is what built your country, and mine, and it's what freed ten million slaves from bondage and gave them the right to vote. It's what overthrew the Czars and crushed Hitler.

I choose "group force" because it works.

[RebelDog]

Egalitarianism is best served by thinking about a certain outcome of actions. For example, egalitarianism is not about going around ensuring everyone is the same, its about ensuring the institutions that promote privilege, hierarchy and exploitation are destroyed. In essence, to achieve an equal society we must destroy the things that ruin such concepts and replace them with the ones that promote and ensure such ideas. Political democratic equality is a lovely bourgeois idea, why isn't economic equality so faithfully held?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It's also worth remembering that Marx himself was not an egalitarian.

[RebelDog]

It's also worth remembering that Marx himself was not an egalitarian.

Yeah, and Trotsky of course.