A Level Politics at Open Study College in Brum

3c) To what extent do socialists believe in equality in practical terms? (24 marks)

The key points regarding the socialist view of equality are that it constitutes a significant part of what democratic socialism in the UK entails. Whilst the Communist philosophy pre 1990 focussed on absolute equality from an idealistic perspective many democratic socialists in the west see out as a somewhat unrealistic aim. They argue that it is contrary to human nature bearing in mind the talents and skills people acquire in life and they permit different strata of wealth and economic achievement within society. The socialist notion of equality as a human value can be summed up in three ways:

1. Formal or foundational equality
2. Equality of Opportunity
3. Equality of outcome

Foundational equality refers back to the principles of Marxism laid out in the communist manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century that led to the formation of the first communist party of Germany in that era called the KDP. Humans are said to have equal moral worth and this is reflected in their political and legal right to equality. It goes back to the fundamental christian right of ashes to ashes dust to dust that we are all equal in life because we are all born and die the same which stems from the Bible. These are known as the historic natural rights. Friedrich Engels the co author of the Communist Manifesto is from the city of Wuppertal in Germany where I lived as a music student in the 00s. It is plain to see why he believed that everyone should have the right to fish and hunt in Wuppertal. The river Wupper particularly (near the big Ironbridge the Müngstener Brücke near Solingen Burg in the neighbouring city of Solingen) is particularly scenic and renown for fly fishing the the surround forests are ideal for hunting. It was also a working class textile metropolis like Manchester famous for its production of clothing as the neighbouring city of Solingen is the German Sheffield and famous for steel production.

The equality of opportunity refers primarily to common access to education and things like healthcare for example,  he Blairite sure start centres were set up to mitigate the circumstances by which inequalities in people’s starting point in life financially can affect their opportunities arising in it. Sure start centres focussed on providing free pre school education for lower class families to allow children to flourish more under their own scheme for example in deprived estate areas. Key to this is the debate as to whether people have an innate genetic and natural ability to succeed or whether this can be taught and nurtured through education. I like the manner in which Tony Blair felt education is key to financial success The sense that you can progress without let or hinderance and the fundamental legal right to study and to lifelong learning at whatever age are key to my view.

Equality of outcome is defined as achieving better levels of social equality, and circumstances usually by means of state intervention. One good indicator of this is the gap between the rich and the poor being monitored by national statistics. Traditionally where the gap between rich and poor is narrower social cohesion in society is said to be better and people are happier, sometimes also referred to as the feel good factor. RH Tawney mentions equality of outcome in his key text as a Christian socialist in 1931 Equality. Other examples of this working in practice from the late 1990s and early 00s are the introduction of the social chapter of the European convention on human rights including the minimum wage and fundamental workers rights introduced by Gordon Brown as the Iron Chancellor in Tony Blair’s government. Also the justification of higher levels of taxation on the rich to mitigate the circumstances of being poor these were seen as justifiable after WW2 to Clement Attlee as he established the welfare state. Its occurred at a time in which men from the whole of society fought and died together for their country and the commonality of man was very much in vogue; it was still the case in the early 80s when I was a child.

One famous satirical observation of this by George Orwell in 1945 in his Animal Farm novel was a significant contribution to the equality debate in socialism. It is a regretful admission in his case as it can be seen as conceding equality is contrary to human nature. Indeed Orwell, himself fought the Spanish fascists as a Socialist Rebel in Spain. So it’s surprising that he expostulates that when the pigs as the most intelligent animals take over command of the farm having thrown the human farmers out their revolutionary slogan changes from ‘All animals are equal’ to ‘All animals are equal but some are more equal than others’. Therefore questioning if revolutionary socialism just replaces one form of human dictation with another.

Two other political figureheads and philosophers in British socialism all focussed on the material gain of the poor relative to other groups. The Fabian Anthony Crossland and Anthony Giddens were for gradual change to a fairer society with the aim of irradiating relative poverty and social injustice, full employment and some sort of welfare state. Crossland believed in the welfare state wholeheartedly whereas Giddens is quoted as admitting it was in some ways flawed he vowed to reform it to make it work as an institution. He was the architect of the third way, which was the policies of Blair and Brown. Their idea was to concede to a more social form of Thatcherism and not bother about some of the more radical less economically focussed and radical forms of socialist thought that for example Mauism and Stalinism implied. I think this was a very bad idea in many ways. I accept that the third way was a very good stepping stone to making socialism work, but it’s not the whole picture. We’ve lost the edge and attractiveness of socialist thought, the dream of a utopia, a centre and a cause to rally round. Many people sing our songs with no passion whatsoever these days as if it never really worked. It does. We forget just what life was life for working class people at the start. They were matchstick makers who’s chemicals they used to make matches burned holes in their hands, they were cotton workers that lost their hands in the machinery of the dark satanic mills, they were luminous watch workers that licked the tips of their brush when they added radioactive paint to the hands of the watch and died of radiation poisoning. Our movement was formed to stop that happening and we should be proud of it. Proud that people don’t have to starve like my friend from Wuppertal who just didn’t like school and wanted a wife and child, left a grammar school at 14 and had nothing, got into illegal raving, drugs, hip, hop, gangs, spent a month inside on remand. I had mercy on him as a Christian socialist. I helped save him and put his life back together. He got a wife a son called Henri a job as a live in care worker and friends. Recently having his first ever holiday abroad in Crete. Socialism offered hope to people like that and I hated society for saying they were worthless. Here are a collection of what I think are the finest socialist German youth movement songs. Socialism has lost it’s sense of fun and drive hasn’t it through be too bogged down in the details. Motivation in socialism was how people sorted these problems out for themselves. I find these songs incredibly motivating.

1. Simple Peace - Der Einfache Frieden.

2. Peace will be no surprise when it comes one day. - Der Frieden wird kein Wunder sein

3. So that the earth continues to bloom - Das die Erde weite Blühe

4. The song that we all like - Das Lied as uns Allen gefällt

5. Bright shines the sun - Hell scheint die Sonne

Lastly I feel it’s Rosa Luxemburg that inspired my strain of socialist philosophy the most. She was an idealist but she also adds in the realism of what I call equality in fulfilment of ambition. It doesn’t matter who you are you should be facilitated in what you want to achieve and do and be as free thinking as possible. Free thinking and achieve you aims that you choose is paramount. The third seemed too dictatorial that these aims should be purely monetary. Most people just want to make their thing work and have a beautiful life not a boring one. We think it’s wrong to think outside the box to achieve it these days. I was once told not to put that I was a political activist on my CV by a Tory carers advisor so as not to be seen as dissenting. It’s a really barbaric snobbery for saying you have no power over me these days. In this lovely children’s film Labyrinth form the 1980s the protagonist says it to the Elven King played by David Bowie at the end to get her baby brother back. I thought it was the greatest moment in feminist history and she had my first loves name. I was in awe of that as a male child it’s powerful, Marxist and sexy to me.

We weren’t afraid to say it then.

You have no power over me - Sarah an the Elven King from Labyrinth.

Rosa Luxembourg advocated that freedom was the freedom to think different and the freedom to think different was not bound to class. This is very counter intuitive to Orwell’s quote that some people or animals are more equal that others. The power to think and live our lives in a free way belongs to us all. This is very bound up with my own view on equality of outcome that people should be equally permitted to strive for and achieve their own goals regardless of class or situation. This is not merely a suggestion or ideal. The notion of freedom existed in German culture as early as the attempted 1815 revolution to unify Germany which was suppressed. From this time a the student song All Thoughts Are Free stems.

All thoughts are free

Who can, but guess them?

They flee away in the shadows of the night

No man can know them

No huntsmen kill them with powder and lead

All thoughts are free.

That was a protectionist attitude the German masons had towards uniting their country from sovereign city states when they were defeated first time. They achieved unity with Prussia in the 1850s for the first time. It probably stems from that and was applied to socialism as well. That one day everyone will be free of class and socialist also.

Other key thinkers here are the French philosopher Foucault. He believed free only existed within the confines and labels society and circumstance provide for you. It’s a calibrated version of what Luxembourg is saying. For example in the construction of a woman’s gender if she is a lesbian it is likely that she was first touched by a woman in childhood and that is the first time she felt love. It has a symbolic significance in her mind for her psychologically. Making her more likely or wiling to be gay by instinct. But the Marxist educator Freiere suggested that this can be countered by becoming aware of your own limit situations as they put it. If I know I was first touched by a woman and I want to be straight I can invent tactics to allow myself to be touched by a man and overcome that inhibition in order to have a family for example. It is also possible to teach that tactic for people to work on their weaknesses as well as strengths and mitigate for other’s tactical advantages and in so doing achieve freedom of thought in saying no one has power over you.

You might think at first glance “freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.” Is a rather toothless statement spoken by a poor man relative to someone with vast resources and material wealth, but what she is referring to I actually personally like. It allows for one to think in ones own way and to select one’s own goals and not have the prescribed by a dictation of trends. It is an exceptional point in that way. That it doesn’t cost anything for society to have freedom of thought for everyone to leave a train as Larkin put it in his tittle poem The Whitsun Weddings of his 1964 collection ‘an arrow shower somewhere becoming rain’. Everyone going to their own destination is perceived a s utopia, in which they disperse form a train; we all choose our own destination but arrive together. Larkin was a leftist poet and in the first poem of that collection Here, he talks of reaching a utopian unfenced existence, untalkative out of reach. It’s not important for material equality but it is for equality of outcome for choosing one’s own pilgrims progress through life, which has advantages for spiritual health and wellbeing to feel in command of one’s own life, and not oppressed by a lack of wealth and status. That is liberation. Do poor people really need to appreciate money and status to live happy varied lives? If we don’t believe in money it rather terrifyingly for the rich people has no power over us. It’s clever of Luxembourg to notice that we can all walk to China for the cost of the ferry to the Hook of Holland; it’s not imperative to have the money to fly for example. People do that more and more these days.