Equality [Socialism Now]

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 19/11/01 11:11 -0500, Robert Needham wrote:
> Greg Scoflield has raised interesting issues. I am more pessimitic than he.
>
> But there are some optimistic predetermined milestones. If one defines a
> democratic socialist society as one moving in the direction of equality of
> citizenship and equality of human rights then,


I suggest that equality is a separate dimension which does not necessarily
define socialism.

In marxist terms there are two main candidates for the axis behind the
definition of socialism

1) the social ownership rather than  private ownership of the means of
production.

2) the buying and selling of labour power as a commodity.

Axis 1, is that which defines the fuzzy boundary between capitalism and
socialism. Greg seems to be arguing that we are further advanced in this
direction than narrow mechanical leftist thinking assumes.

Axis 2 defines the fuzzy boundary between socialism and communism. This has
not been discussed in this thread much, but the limitations on the role of
the free market is creating more space for this to be broken down with
other forms of collaborative labour other than that mediated by commodity
production, growing.

However *inequality* is recognised under socialism in terms of to each
according to his work, and therefore in a mixed economy moving, in its
forms towards socialism, inequality, even though it may arise from other
factors, is not a defining variable.

Equality was a goal of the French Revolution but is not necessarily a goal
of communism, which is a society in which people have according to their
very possibly unequal needs.

I think Robert raises an important thread in the political struggles going
on through the socialist transition about the role of rights, but it is not
the defining axis of socialism as such.

Broadly I suggest that individual bourgeois right will be restricted and
replaced with collective social right that recognises the concrete nature
of rights in their actual social and economic context. Paradoxically they
may be advanced by class actions: eg all those who got lung cancer arguably
as a result of the private control of the means of production.

I hope that does not sound negative about the role of equality in the
socialist transition, but as part of a collaborative project I think we
need to debate and sharpen up our definitions of the core processes going
on in the world.

Chris Burford

London