The problem with Socialist "egalitarianism"

There is no need for egalitarianism if we are all the same. There is nothing remarkable about recognising equality of identical people. It is only remarkable to clearly distinguish foolish from the wise,  but nontheless recognise their equality in rights or equal worth of souls if you will. Equally there is nothing remarkable about considering  two people that own the same amount of property equals. Seeing one family own a much grander house than another jet consider them equal, that is remarkable!

The socialists would make everyone own the same amount of property (ie none) and take away all nobility from egalitarianism and equality!

It is very much the same problem Modern Liberals have in regard to tolerance. Their idea of tolerance is all people having identical opinions on all cultural issues. But there is no need for tolerance if we all have the same opinions. And worse there is nothing remarkable about such "tolerance". Tolerance is only remarkable in regard to people and opinions you do not like!


Equality like tolerance is meaningless without diversity.

I clicked this topic expecting someone to have hit upon *one* of the issues of socialism and be all proud of themselves.  But this gets at the core of the problem that humanity will have to overcome if we're not going to destroy ourselves.  I hope you don't mind me quoting you in the future.

Great post!

Marko:

Equality like tolerance is meaningless without diversity.

Good show, lad.  I too shall be using this line (& by proxy, your post) in my arguments.

nazgulnarsil:

I hope you don't mind me quoting you in the future.

Go ahead, I do not belive in intellectual property. :)

 

nazgulnarsil:

But this gets at the core of the problem that humanity will have to overcome if we're not going to destroy ourselves.

Careful there, using words like "humanity". At this rate you will get called a collectivist and accused of using collectivist terminology on here. Don`t you know there is no "humanity", there are only induviduals. ;D

Where are you getting the idea that Socialists believe that egalitarianism is just because people are identical?  The idea of "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need" seems to directly contradict this interpretation...  I don't mean to suggest that you're obviously wrong; I'm just not sure I've ever seen this argument in the socialist writing I've read.

Donny with an A:

from each according to his ability

there are more unproductive people than there are streets to sweep.

I wasn't suggesting that the principle is an appropriate one to guide social organization; it's just a very typical expression of the socialist ideal.

Donny with an A:

Where are you getting the idea that Socialists believe that egalitarianism is just because people are identical?  The idea of "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need" seems to directly contradict this interpretation...  I don't mean to suggest that you're obviously wrong; I'm just not sure I've ever seen this argument in the socialist writing I've read.

I didn`t say that. I was trying to say egalitarians want to make us all the same or pretend that we are, I did not say they realise this. To be "equal" the Socialist egalitarians would actually have us all equally poor and the feminist egalitarians would have us pretend we *are* all the same. They do not seem to realise that we do not be the same to be equal. I do not need to own a house as big as my neighbour to be his equal. No more than I need to sing as well, be as tall or have as many relatives as him. To bring about equality the egalitarians think they need to crack down on diversity (particularly diversity in wealth). Just like the Modern Liberals think that to bring about tolerance they need to destroy diversity of opinion. Not realising what they really are pushing for is not egalitarianism and tolerance, but the lack of any need for genuine egaliatarianism and tolerance.

There is no need for us to be tolerant to tolerate each other if we already think exactly the same. Likewise there is no need to consider ourselves equals if we are already all the same or belive ourselves to be such. Equality is only relavant when we recognise differences between ourselves, but stil hold those differences are no ground to infringe on the rights of others. Some people are shrewd and some are foolish, but just because that is true it does not give the shrewd the right to lay claim on the wealth of the foolish. But equally so it does not give the foolish a claim on the wealth of the shrewd. That is the true point of equality. I do not want everyone to own the same amount of property. I just want my stolen tax money back. When there is a revolution I am not leaving some of my tax money to the cronies so that we may be equally wealthy. I am taking all of it back even if it means they have to move into a shack. But that is OK, I belive in equality so I will not lay claim to their income and tax them, which means we can be equals even if they are living in shacks.

Classical Liberals asserted that just because a king unlike the peasanty wore a crown and bathed regularly that gave him no right to hold down the peasants. That is egalitarianism. Not pretending that actually the peasants smelled as nice.

Just to be clear though, where are you getting the idea that this is how socialists think of equality?  Because I've never seen Marx saying anything like this, and I'm not familiar with any egalitarians who actually argue this way.

What do you mean? You don`t think that Socialists are pushing for a world where we all put equal effort into our labour and consume the same amount of goods?

Marko:

What do you mean? You don`t think that Socialists are pushing for a world where we all put equal effort into our labour and consume the same amount of goods?

No. They believe that people should work as hard and they can and take only as much as they "need".

What they belive is irrelevant.  Belief does not make reality. The only thing that matters is what would the reality they would bring about look like.

Solid_Choke:

Marko:

What do you mean? You don`t think that Socialists are pushing for a world where we all put equal effort into our labour and consume the same amount of goods?

No. They believe that people should work as hard and they can and take only as much as they "need".

Doesn't humans already determine what they need in their act on the free market?

 

As far as I'm aware, people who argue for socialism think that by allowing the means of production (factories, land, etc.) to be owned exclusively by a class of individuals, the rest of society is forced into wage slavery in order to gain control of the resources necessary to sustain themselves.  The socialist argument is that by collectivizing ownership of the means of production, we would prevent the capitalist class from exploiting wage laborers.  Remember, socialism has its roots in classical liberal philosophy.  The idea is to protect the working class from capitalist exploitation by giving them access to the resources they need to sustain themselves; socialists argue that this ensures freedom in a real sense, whereas capitalist freedom is an illusion because of the violently enforced boundaries set up by the private property system.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not a socialist.  But I don't think that socialism is wrong for the reasons that you're discussing here.

Donny with an A:

But I don't think that socialism is wrong for the reasons that you're discussing here.

Are you arguing his definition or his conclusion?

You brought up Marxism, but I think it was obvious he is not talking about marxism.  He's talking about leftist egalitarianism.

...but the title of this thread is "The problem with Socialist "egalitarianism""

Not all socialists are marxists.

I don't see the problem here, everyone else seems to grasp what he is referring to...

 

Donny with an A:

As far as I'm aware, people who argue for socialism think that by allowing the means of production (factories, land, etc.) to be owned exclusively by a class of individuals, the rest of society is forced into wage slavery in order to gain control of the resources necessary to sustain themselves.  The socialist argument is that by collectivizing ownership of the means of production, we would prevent the capitalist class from exploiting wage laborers.  Remember, socialism has its roots in classical liberal philosophy.  The idea is to protect the working class from capitalist exploitation by giving them access to the resources they need to sustain themselves; socialists argue that this ensures freedom in a real sense, whereas capitalist freedom is an illusion because of the violently enforced boundaries set up by the private property system.

That is nicely worded, but does ideal Socialism not mean uniformity of effort in labour and (disregarding people with special needs) uniformity in the value of goods consumed? How can I be equal if I must work as hard as everyone else? If they force me to work as hard as everyone else does does that not make me their slave? Why must I contribute according to my ability, when I want to work just hard enough to grow enough food for myself? I may (or may not) be free to remove myself from their society, but seeing how as an induvidual I am not allowed to any means of production it is impossible for me to survive on my own, therefore I truly am their wage slave. But if I am their wage slave how am I their equal? 

For equality to mean anything there must be freedom and in freedom there will be diversity not uniformity. And it will be the diversity that will make equality remarkable.


But thank you, you have made me build on my argument.

Marko, I think you basically nailed it on the head there; as Jan Narveson wrote in his essay, "Collective Responsibility":

...the idea of collective ownership of the earth is, really, a myth, a dish of romantic political nonsense.  And like almost all romantic myths when they are politicized, the results of taking it seriously are inevitably evil.  Some general story of the Lockean stripe is all there is, because it is all there can be.  Individual people pick fruit from individual trees, dig up particular patches of soil, kill particular deer, grow particular pigs, and the rest of it - up to and including inventing the digital computer and putting on productions of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs.  That is how mankind is fed, and clothed, and entertained, because there is no other way.  To "collectivize" agriculture is not, because it cannot be, to cause the plants to grow in some other way; it is, instead, to force people to work differently: to work under the direction of others who need pay no attention to the worker's interests, and to disconnect those workers from the incentives and disincentives that have always impelled people to work.  It is not surprising that it does not work very well, but it is important to appreciate what it is and that it cannot be what it appears to pretend to be.

(Definitely one of my favorite quotations of all time.)

In short, I think that the problem with Socialism is that it does not recognize that "collectivization" is necessarily "centralization of planning and decisionmaking."  This carries with it all of the calculation problems discussed by Austrians like Mises and Hayek, and puts individuals under the direction of others.  There is not, and cannot be, a collectively coordinated society.  The socialist alternative is, and must always be, a dressed up fascism.

Liberty student, I'm sorry if I'm a little slower on the uptake than you are.  I assume that Marko posted his argument here in order to get some feedback; I was just trying to get a clearer picture of where he was coming from.  And it does appear that Marko was more clearly able to identify the elements of socialism that he found objectionable in his more recent post, so hopefully he's better off for it too.