Inequality or equality?

From a long-term historical point of view, the current highly unequal societies are exceptional, since the vast majority of humans have lived in extremely egalitarian societies. Now the gap between those at the top of society, and the rest of us, is actually getting bigger. Reports from other countries suggest that this is a general trend in capitalism throughout the world.

Clearly there are a lot more poor than rich: and since the majority could easily overcome a small minority, why do they not take such an obvious step to put an end to such manifest unfairness? The answer, of course, is the unremitting barrage of propaganda to persuade everyone that rich people are rich because they are in some way better than the rest of us. But in recent years that has been challenged and undermined by the perception of the undeserved wealth of the greedy bankers and financial speculators in the City and Wall St. If we didn't know it already, the recession should have taught us that capitalism is simply not a "fair" system. There are many more important criticisms that can be levelled against capitalism, but the idea of "fairness" – the assumption that the society we live in should basically be a fair one, giving everyone an equal shout and an equal chance – is a political sentiment that seems to strike a very deep chord with people at this present time. On that score, capitalism is clearly found wanting. The whole system depends upon, and is defined by, the compulsive need of capitalists to accumulate wealth. To think that it is possible to intervene or halt this process through any system of redistribution of incomes – either through taxation or the "rich" foregoing part of their incomes with grand philanthropic gestures – is unrealistic nonsense. The bankers have been an easy scapegoat for the fundamental failings of the economic system, capitalism.

Socialism will undoubtedly be a more materially equal society, but that is not the objective. Rather it is for the establishment of common ownership of the means of life will be a social relationship of equality between all people. This creates a classless society. That is the socialist objective and not a "fairer" or more "just" capitalism. What critics of capitalism argue for is a more equal kind of social system, in the belief that this will improve the quality of life for all. However, they stand not for socialism, but for a less unequal form of capitalism.

It is clear that slightly less unequal versions of capitalism are possible, but also that they do not put an end to social problems, as even the more egalitarian versions still have them. It leaves the wages-prices-profit system of capitalism untouched. Most people will still have to work for wages, companies will still have to make a profit, workers will lose their jobs when the company can no longer make a profit from their labour power, the environment will still be desecrated in the search for cheap raw materials and higher profits. The waste of capitalism, with its banks and accountants will remain, as will the causes of wars. It will take a socialist society to do away with the grotesque inequalities of capitalism and its inherent problems.

Contrary to popular myth, Marx and Engels did not frame their arguments for socialism in terms of material equality. In fact they rejected demands for levelling down as "crude communism". They did not criticise capitalism because poverty is unevenly distributed, but because there is poverty where there need be none, and that there is a privileged class which benefits from a system which subjects the majority to an artificial and unnecessary poverty. Marx argued that socialism or communism (they mean the same thing) would be based on "from each according to ability, to each according to need." This is not an egalitarian slogan. Rather, it asks for people to be considered individually, each with a different set of needs and abilities. Nor would socialist society have to be under-pinned by some conception of distributive justice. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" is a practical arrangement for meeting self-defined needs.

Socialists stand for the establishment of a system of society fundamentally different from that which exists now. In a socialist society the means of producing and distributing wealth—factories, farms, mines, docks, offices, transport—will belong to the whole community and will do away with the need for exchange, so that money will have no use. But is it not the case that, even if classes were abolished and all people were equal, a hierarchy would soon arise again and society would be back to square one? The opponent of socialism feels convinced that inequality is a phenomenon from which society can never escape. Perhaps—and only perhaps—socialist society will not eliminate inequalities of talent: one person might be a greater pianist than another will ever be, while another will run faster than another could ever train to run. But this does not mean that socialism will establish a hierarchy of pianists or athletes or poets or brain surgeons. In a cooperative society it will be recognised that poets cannot write their literary masterpieces unless the miner is willing to bring the coal from under the ground. Humanity lives interdependently. And who is to say that miners will not be poets when they are not down the mine and the greatest chess player in socialism will not sweep the streets so that the greatest brain surgeon can walk to the hospital without rats biting at the ankles?

Socialists want a world of equality, but this is not one where everybody has an equal income. On the contrary, it would be a world where nobody had a monetary income, large, small or equal, but where everybody would have an equal say in the way things are run and an equal right to satisfy their needs. And one in which, while there’d be no bankers or stock-brokers. We don’t have to choose the lesser of two evils, a "moral" or "immoral" capitalism. Neither a free market nor a controlled market but a non-market society.