Equal - Part 3

By Mike Lundy


Part 1 of this article looked back at some famous historical conflicts staged in the name of equality, and the documents celebrated as icons of humanity's moral progress toward a more egalitarian society. It pointed out that those famous conflicts were less about a belief in equality and more about resenting and rebelling against oppression.

Part 2 then explored the history of society to see whether inequality is an inherent 'natural' feature of human beings, finding instead that inequality was a trade-off for the more efficient resource production of agrarian society. Western* society developed from an egalitarian society through agriculture and an industrialised society that was increasingly hierarchical, with an unfortunate dearth of social controls over the behaviour leaders, other than outright revolt. In sum, appeals to 'nature' do not in any way support an argument for denying people equal rights before the law.

The structure of Western society has become less rigid over the last 100 years, and more people have equal voting, economic and legal rights.

However, one group of people find this all very distasteful.

This third and final part of the Equal series explores the growing influence of this group, the alarming future they represent and discusses what can be done about it.

History repeating

It's important not to glorify the historical and ongoing uprisings against the abuse of power as the inevitable march of egalitarianism, or as any evidence of human 'moral progress'.

Parts 1 and 2 of Equal outlined a history that can help us to understand our current society. It tells us:

• Hierarchies predominate because they are efficient for food production and organisation of large societies, but require leaders with power over others
• Power gets ugly sooner or later because we cannot apply our natural interpersonal social controls on leaders in our large society
• People raised in an hierarchical society tend to view humanity through a ranking system with themselves either rightly on/near the top or wrongly oppressed by others above them
• Humans near the top will justify their status there with an appeal to the 'natural order' and resist greater equality as leading to the 'failure of society' through decadence and decay
• High levels of inequality lead to deprivation or excessive restriction, which leads to resistance against oppressive and abusive power
• In response, those at the top will employ increasingly more oppressive actions to maintain power
• Those with the capacity will rebel against the level of power just above them, for their own advancement, not everyone's, because no one likes being oppressed.

This cycle has repeated throughout history.

Powerful leaders have long justified domination and oppression by claiming to be 'better' people, naturally superior to the 'masses'. The West has justified its colonisation and domination over other countries by its self-proclaimed status as 'better' than other societies. This is circular logic: justifying an active campaign of oppressing people in other countries, smaller ethnic groups and women everywhere because men considered they were naturally 'superior', but then also justifying their place 'at the top' because of their oppression and domination of others. 'We oppress and dominate others because we are better... oh and we're better because we are dominant.'  'We're better than you; do it our way.' 'We won the war therefore we must be better!!' (more distortions of Darwin.) Those suffering from this oppression might replace the word better with ruthless.

The Western idea of hierarchical society, with dominant and 'better' men as leaders, spread to much of the globe. It was followed soon after by Western economic colonisation, and in the many colonised countries things were far from rosy for most people.

But back in dominant Western counties, through the high levels of wealth generated in the middle of the 1900s, deprivation and poverty were considerably reduced. The New Deal in the US generated educational and work opportunities for many more. Booming primary production in Australia resulted in wealth to support a high quality of life for many. Their own 'equality' cocooned a newly emerging middle class settling in to enjoy its comforts. Many issues remain, but compared with people in the 1700s, we live in a relatively equal society.

But the cracks are showing. There may not be kings and aristocrats tyrannising us now but, just like Orwell's pigs, others have taken their place. Courtesy of the new global corporatocracy, the abuse of power continues. Disastrous neo-liberal economic policies have resulted in poverty for a rising number, with stagnant economies across the Western world and a non-Western world increasingly unwilling to take the oppression any longer. The policy of austerity makes life a grind and kills opportunities for people to make a living. Income inequality is at extreme levels: the infamous 1% owns the vast majority.

Resentment and nationalism are growing primarily because starkly unequal economic opportunity is clearly visible, people feel deprived or fear a life of scarcity, and they want someone or something to blame. A rebellion is beginning.

Fear of 'their' equality

However, the real cause - neo-liberal economics - has not been blamed for this extreme economic inequality. Instead, some lay the blame on the recent advances in legal equality and ongoing campaigns to improve social equality.

The Conservative political movement claims the decadence and decay of society as due to violating the 'natural' hierarchy, reducing the control by white men, and basically 'too much equality' for others. For them, the unequal status of people - with them on top - is a deeply held belief about the way the world is - not something you can debate. It's not something that can be challenged by accusations of racism or sexism - an hierarchy of race and sex is considered the way the world should be, and shoring it up will restore society.

With minor variation, they echo the words (see Part 1) of George Fitzhugh (1806-1881): 'Equality means calamity. Subordination, difference of caste and classes, differences of sex, age and slavery beget peace and good will.' They find comfort in the philosophy of Maurice Barrès who said: 'The individual is nothing, society is everything'. Recent research into the history of conservatism highlights the fear: 'Barrès theorised that the culture and integrity of a nation was 'eternal', and that any change to it, whether brought about by foreign influence or progressive politics, would bring about its demise.'

The recent resurgence in Conservative politics stems from alarm by some people that their 'rightful' place in the upper half of the ranking system is being threatened by violation to the 'natural' order: humans as ranked within a society that is rigidly hierarchical.

Each challenge to the Conservative's world view ends up being imagined as a catastrophic threat of disintegration.

The existence of growing poverty, the starkly unequal share of wealth, the harshness of life under austerity measures - the outcomes of harsh economic policy - are enlisted to support this world view. The deliberate failure to point to neo-liberal economics for what it really is - unjust, inhumane and rapacious - means another culprit has had to be found.

This has seen desperate and fearful people elect conservative and nationalistic governments. Nationalistic slogans focus on culture and birthplace for their statements of superiority, avoiding direct racist, sexist or homophobic statements. These slogans trade on a nostalgia (but actually a fantasy) for a time in the past when everything was better, and people were 'in their place': back when America was great, for example; back when women knew their rightful and subordinate role; back when people of colour didn't cause so much trouble; back when refugees didn't think they could just come here and claim asylum and take our jobs (after neo-liberal policies have destroyed their economies). The rise of white supremacy movements at the extremes gets the attention, but broad nationalism is arguably of greater concern in that it gives power to those with the most invested in a rigid social hierarchy.

Those already at the top of the pile are taking even more power in this context of fear. The most unlikely of politicians are being elected through manipulating our shared human tendency to rank people and our alarm about possibly losing our place. Those doing fabulously well through their business ventures and association have been actively working to stir up fear of other people getting 'too much'. The Murdoch media shock jocks stoke Conservative alarm worldwide but particularly on American television. In Australia, Palmer admitted he ran a personal attack campaign which ensured the election of the party most sympathetic to his own business interests, actively working against a raft of progressive economic policies.

The politicians, the Conservative media and the obscenely wealthy are successfully distracting 'the masses' from the real cause of their deteriorating material conditions. In fact, they continue to promote neo-liberal policies which make things worse for the majority.

Understand then act

If we want to do anything about this, we first need to accept that we each hold a ranking system for humanity - whether we want to admit it and even if it 'less bad' than a white supremacist's ranking system. For some it is integrated into their religious beliefs. Those with power and a Conservative mindset are manipulating this human attribute with vast media resources, and stoking fear and division to maintain their place at the top of the hierarchy.

We need to stop criticising poor or disenfranchised people in neo-liberal economies who find solace and something to blame for their lack of opportunity in the rhetoric and the misleading politicking of Conservatives. This ugly and relentless rhetoric is blasted from the media every hour of the day, with someone always found to blame for what's wrong with society.

We have to stop being side-tracked by arguments about the specific ugliness that is racism, sexism and all the other '-isms', as well as wasting excessive time and energy on identity politics and fights over whether we are all 'really' equal. Protecting our existing equal status before the law is critical.

We also need to understand those currently at the top of the ranking system will not just sit by and watch this happen. They have been working hard for decades to regain power and to subvert (tax havens) or pervert (gerrymandering) any efforts at controlling their behaviour. Their aim is to wind back the legal status of people they consider 'naturally' inferior, and to restore a rigid hierarchy where they remain at the top. They are making alarming progress, while we argue about identity politics.

We need to confront the true causes of our economic quagmire - inhumane neo-liberal economic policies, neo-colonial pillage of non-Western countries, and unfettered capitalism structured to generate massive wealth for the very few. We must counter the arguments about 'too much quality' with simple and straightforward information that explains that extreme economic inequality is the  predictable outcome of neo-liberal economics, vastly more responsible than any other 'ism' that might also be involved.

Most importantly, we need to focus on the current face of power and our lack of effective social mechanisms to contain power abuse. We need to highlight directly that 'too much equality' is being blamed by people who stand to gain power from this propaganda.

What now?

I started this series by saying I view all people as having equal value and status. According to the dictionary, equal means 'of equivalent/same value, alike, or treated impartially'. I recognise that people are different in temperament, ability and life story, but I believe everyone should have the same legal rights and impartial treatment before the law.

I realise many people do not share this view and are actively working to wind back various forms of equality.

To counter this, we need to understand that history is less the progress of a genuine egalitarian spirit and more a struggle due to our society's failure to replace lost or inadequate social controls against the abuse of power.

We need to understand also that an hierarchy is an efficient structure for a large, complex society, but need not entail oppression. Different social roles and various positions in this hierarchy per se do not need to lead to unequal value or legal status. The missing component - which should be the focus of our combined attention - is establishing and maintaining more appropriate and broad scale social controls on the all too common human tendency to abuse power.

Let's work to create new social controls that reward appropriate leaders and prevent the abuse of power, rather than moralising about a narrow concept of equal rights.


Sources for images

• Equal opportunity and MAGA unattributed; found through Creative Commons image search.
• Gary North quote: AZ Quotes
• Defend equality poster: Aaron T. Harvey

*My third apology for knowing only about Western countries.