Yes, because we believe that having a society run on the basis of inequality is at once brutal, backward, inhuman, inefficient and unnecessary.
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Egalitarianism?
Is this an ideology that all here subscribe to? if so why?
Yes, because we believe that having a society run on the basis of inequality is at once brutal, backward, inhuman, inefficient and unnecessary.
i think its important to take in account that egalitaritarism dosnt mean we all have the same tv or the same house.
just wanted to point that out, people get confused quick about that notion.
Appreciated.
Well, this begs the question of what does egalitarianism mean. Conservatives usually say that they, too, believe in egalitarianism -- meaning equal opportunity.
Eppur si muove -- Galileo Galilei
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COMMA SP-... Aww, fuck it.
I am also an egalitarian.
[FONT=Arial]Equality of opportunity is something all "sides" seem to argue from when discussing their views. "Equality of condition" is a bogeyman - with a few exceptions, I've never met someone who thought it was unethical for one person to own what another person doesn't. Even the most ardent communist recognizes that if someone doesn't work and they have the capacity to, I'm under no obligation to provide for him or her.
Liberals/Social Democrats think a large welfare states allots the most EoO, while conservatives defend small welfarism, right-libertarians defend "laissez-faire" capitalism, and socialists defend an economy of producers.
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What does egalaterianism mean? Ulatimately EVERYONE believes in egalitarianism, the simple concept that men are born as equals, and have equal innate rights.
Except for non-whites, gays, women, foreigners (and so on) for a significant amount of people- hell except for "everyone else but myself" if you're a capitalist. Private property is innately unegalitarian- to claim for ones self naturally occuring, material things as your own sole property to do with what you will implies some kind of right to that material above and beyond that of everyone else.
Private property is exactly like denying black people the right to fountains and seats at the front of buses- except instead of "white/black" it's "me/not me".
^^ MikeSC -- nicely said!
Eppur si muove -- Galileo Galilei
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There's an interesting entry on "equality of opportunity" in Stanford University's Encyclopedia of Philosophy, including some conflicting views of what it means.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/
Fundementally, they'll say they are egalitarian, in other words they believe in equality. All those other things they explain away, or rationalize out of ignorance. All men are created equal, they wrote that in the US constitution and they believed it, but clearly they did'nt follow it, not even close.
Equality of opportunity is subserviant to equality of condition. If one is to have equal opportunity, then they must be born into the world with an equal chance to succeed. Yet, if you're born into a rich family, then your opportunity is greater than that of a person born into a poor family. Thus, equality of opportunity requires equality of condition.
"As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness! " Leon Trotsky
Moral Political Compass Results
Moral Order: -6
Moral Rules: 8
I think the original point of this thread was something we all believe in. Well, we all work for a classless, stateless society. The difference is how you get there. Anarchists would implant this society along with revolution, "communists" would implant a socialist state that "whithers away" into communism. And then, too, there are different forms of such a state.
-PC
[FONT=Arial]At the same time, forcing equality of condition is unproductive. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world where we can factor in every variable to project what someone's contributions to society would be if fully engaged in their work. The best we can hope for would be a post-singularity, post-industrial "Eden-esque" civilization where labor obligations - whether from Man or Nature - are archaic.
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Yes most here do but a contradiction in communism is for those who believe in the dictatorship of the proletarian phase because during this stage the workers oppress the bourgeois creating an unequal society.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.-Étienne de La Boétie
But this is a fantasy. By the mid 1850's, even Marx came to realize that even w/ the prospect that much menial work could be mechanized, some form of labor of an unspontaneous and undesirable sort would remain necessary in communist society. In the Grundrisse he wrote: "...the labour time necessary for the satisfaction of absolute needs leaves free time...so that finally material production leaves every person surplus time for other activities."
Presumably this 'labour time necessary for the satisfaction of absolute needs' still has to be allocated and this would require the (re)introduction of principles of rights and the government of men.
Eppur si muove -- Galileo Galilei
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The only equality I can ever see as 'truly equal' is 'equality of authority.' All other notions of equality necessarily create an inequality of authority.
I'm not here very often, but before I read on, I have to give myself a bit of a bleeding on this point (If there's any medieval history gonks'll tell me that blood wasn't the humour that had to do with rage, please correct me).
Equality of opportunity is a rhetorical tool which justifies the laissez-faire economics that conservatives enforce. It glosses over the fact that the poorest in society need aid to maximise their potential. It denies that things for some children are just dropped in their lap, which then brings it all down to accident of birth: I could have been born into a wealthy North London family, been educated at Eton and Oxford; or I could have been born into a Rotherham former mining family, gone to an underfunded secondary school and worked in a shop. So then the equality of opportunity, in the liberal sense, is shown up as the load of arse it is.
Vive le Birkenhead
Vive le Revolution
I'd "thank" you if I could. I don't know if you meant "equality of authority" only concerning other people or if you meant "equality of authority" over the material world that we find ourselves in also, but if it's the latter that's a cool description of communism.
