The Fight for Equality in the New World

The great unifying theme of many of today's political struggles is the quest for equality

-- equality of races, sexes, classes, and generations. People are simply no longer willing to tolerate being on the losing end of systematic exclusion from full participation and respect in modern society. This unwillingness drives some people crazy -- those who have traditionally been top -- but there is no getting away from it.

The main reasons this is happening come from the kind of economy we are developing.

In previous eras, when production was less highly organized, the work you did involved land or tools that you owned -- or at least had access to. So societies revolved around getting and keeping ownership of property in the hands of particular individuals and groups -- and on keeping the non-owners subservient. At the same time, the "have-nots" were always ready to seize any opportunity to get their own hands on what the "haves" had.

In a modern, highly organized economy, on the other hand, people have jobs, tasks they perform as part of larger organizations. Jobs, however, cannot be "owned" in the same sense that farms or shops can -- nor can they be directly bequeathed to one's children. (And even if you own your own business, which can in theory be passed on, it is only by coincidence that your children want to follow the same occupation.) Access to jobs depends not on property-ownership, but on education, which can in principle be made freely available, allowing any child, from any family, to pursue his or her chosen line of work.
At the same time, modern communications media tend to break down the isolation of classes and communities. Everyone can know what is going on all over -- in itself a great leveler of inequality. If we add to that a wide-open freedom of speech, it becomes impossible for elites to maintain an unquestioned authority. Nothing in modern society is "unquestioned."

Imagine, for a moment, a different world.

Imagine a world in which we have made a handful of concrete -- and not completely unrealistic -- reforms. First, we are enforcing the anti-discrimination laws. The processes by which people are kept down on the basis of race, religion, gender, family structure, and so forth are being actively suppressed.
Second, the actual degree of economic inequality is limited. We will never achieve absolute equality of wealth or income and should not even try. (We need incentives to make the economy work properly.) But we don't need the extreme inequalities produced by a completely free market. So let's say the community took pains to see that the income of the people on the top and those on the bottom didn't differ by more than, say, ten or twenty to one. That would be the difference between making $15,000 per year and making $300,000. Why on earth would we ever need more incentive than that?
Third, the scope for democratic participation is wide -- not only in traditional "governmental" affairs, but in the workplace, school, and elswhere. Not every decision should be put to a vote, of course, nor is everyone interested in spending all their time thinking about politics. But merely giving everyone the right to participate will tend to keep the decision-makers in line. And people will get into the habit of thinking of themselves as being in control -- even if they don't act on it all the time.
And finally, access to educational resources will be generally available -- without regard to a person's social or economic background. (Some countries are essentially there already.) Educational credentials are the main way people get jobs in a modern economy, and we should strive to distribute them as fairly as possible.

So what kind of society would these reforms produce?

There would be relatively little actual inequality in the conditions of people's lives. There would especially be no sharp distinctions between those who make decisions and those who don't. But most important, with educational resources generally available -- without regard to a person's social or economic origins -- it would not be possible to pass one's social position on to one's children. And without some mechanism to pass social status in families, it is impossible for separate "subcultures" of haves and have-nots, rulers and ruled, to maintain themselves. Everyone would have friends and family members in different social and economic levels -- which would not be so different to begin with -- so there would be less arrogance on the one side and resentment on the other. Nobody's experience would be foreign to anybody else's.

So how does this relate?

Without equality, we cannot muster the consensus -- or even the basic political stability -- needed to find solutions to our environmental challenges and create a sustainable society. And without sustainability, we won't survive. So we have a page on Sustainability Issues.

Individual freedom is the flip-side of equality. Where we find a denial of personal freedom, we are sure to find an elite striving to maintain its position of privilege and control over some subordinate group. So we have a page on Freedom Issues.

One of the main forms of equality for which people today are fighting is the right to equal respect and rights for the members of different cultural groups. At the same time, those elements of traditional cultures which embrace inequality -- especially of women, young people, and religious minorities -- must be modified so that the larger goal of equality can be attained. So we have a page on Multicuturalism Issues.

Finally, to preserve equality as it is achieved, each person must be allowed to share in the direction of the larger community. Otherwise, all we will have achieved is to create new elites -- based on education or political mobilization -- which will the basis for a new inequality. So we have a page on Participation Issues.

We have a page of resources on women's issues and sexual equality in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

We also have pages on Racial Issues in the United States -- including the question of affirmative action -- and elsewhere in the world.

On related questions, we have pages of resources on Religious Issues and Human Rights.

And, of course, we have a page on Labor Issues and class equality.

You can also check out our Gay Rights and Youth Issues pages.

Eventually, we also hope to have pages on equality of educational opportunity and other issues that affect the coming of an egalitarian world. Return to the top of the page

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