Social inequality

“ The social balance is the equalization of the strong and the weak; for, while they are not equals, they are strangers; they can form no associations,—they live as enemies. Then, if inequality of conditions is a necessary evil, so is isolation, for society and inequality are incompatible with each other. Then, if society is the true condition of man's existence, so is equality also. ”

“ The wrong that produces inequality; the wrong that in the midst of abundance tortures men with want or harries them with the fear of want; that stunts them physically, degrades them intellectually, and distorts them morally, is what alone prevents harmonious social development. ”

“ All the complaints and criticisms about the inequality of men apply to inequalities in property, luxury, and creature comforts, not to knowledge, virtue, or even physical beauty and strength. But it is plainly impossible that we should all attain to equality on the level of the best of us. The history of civilization shows us that the human race has by no means marched on in a solid and even phalanx. It has had its advance-guard, its rear-guard, and its stragglers. It presents us the same picture today ”

“ This arrangement of the conditions of social and civil life, from long habit, may well be said to become constitutional, and necessary to the happiness of that society, although thereby one may seem forced to be a tinker and another a tailor. Hence we infer, inequality among men is the necessary result of the rules of civil life. ”

“ All that a good government aims at, therefore, is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities. ”

“ For they believe in the natural inequality of men, and regard this inequality as the very basis of association, as the indispensable condition of social order.
“They reject the system of community of goods, for this would be a manifest violation of the first of all the moral laws which it is their mission to teach—viz., that in the future each one should rank according to his capacity and be rewarded according to his works. ”

“ The so-called physical and mental inequality of human beings is small compared to the social inequality that results when their estranged unequal powers are reallocated among them in varying quantities of socially equivalent units. ”

“ Society, then, ought to see that all minority, all servitude, all excess of inequality that may be produced by the fatal effect of the laws of nature or of the social laws, is suppressed or alleviated as much as possible. ”

“ That she became invested with certain homely and all-wooly virtues by the worship of millions is precisely why she choked the last breath out of social tradition with her Negro friends, her boondoggling, sweaty indigents, her professional Socialists, her dedicated slum-house guardians of gutter garbage, and her antics as the militant apostle of democracy and equality. The bedrock of Society is inequality, the existence and recognition of an aristocracy. ”

“ First, private property in land; second, great social inequality; third, poverty of manual labourers; fourth, a large town population, and a small or minimum peasant population. Its less prominent but no less decisive feature is the complete social subjugation of the poor by the rich. ”

“ It should not be forgotten that the varying degrees of success in the different walks of life finally have caused so-called social differences. These differences result from the attempt on the part of mankind to meet "the inequality of men in their capacity for the work with which they are confronted in this life," said the New York Journal of Commerce, with great acuteness, in a recent editorial discussion of the phase of the question. ”

“ The result of these undeniable facts, is the inequalities of social station, in America, as elsewhere, though it is an inequality that exists without any more arbitrary distinctions than are indispensably connected with the maintenance of civilization. ”

“ I am merely attempting to set forth the general fact that as a social development goes on, inequality tends to establish itself, and not to point out the particular sequence, which must necessarily vary with different conditions. ”

“ For, while the integration which accompanies growth tends in itself to set free mental power to work improvement, there is, both with increase of numbers and with increase in complexity of the social organization, a counter tendency set up to the production of a state of inequality, which wastes mental power, and, as it increases, brings improvement to a halt. ”

“ The individual made more secure in his work, protected more by law and participating more in the [275] affairs of business and government, will have a sense of playing a more dignified part in the social economy. Conceal as we may the inferiority of the laborer's position under the pretenses of democracy and liberty and equality, this inferiority of position exists and the inequality that prevails in democratic society is certainly one of the fertile sources of evil in the world to-day. ”

“ The two sects glory in laying down as a principle inequality of conditions,—reasoning from Nature, who, they say, intended the inequality of capacities. They boast only of one thing; namely, that their political system is so perfect, that the social inequalities always correspond with the natural inequalities. ”

“ As we have seen, some of the Socialists deduce the inequality of human individuals from the unnaturalness of the old form of social organization; they not only maintain a vague idea of equality, but they also expect to see an equal development of individuals, though strong and weak, bright and dull, still continue. ”

“ In the remaining chapters, which we must dismiss briefly, we meet with such statements as "labor has been produced by an artificial creation of want of food, and by then supplying the want on certain conditions"; that "civilization has always been begun by an oppressive minority"; that "progress depends on certain gifted individuals," and therefore social equality would destroy progress; that inequality influences production by existing as an object of desire and as a means of pressure; that the evils of poverty are caused by want, not by inequality ”

“ The Sewing Girl.—The inequality of social life and domestic comfort in large cities, is, we presume, inseparable from a state of society as at present organized, and the bold reformer, even while he is preaching, is illustrating its incapacity for sudden change. So long as capital possesses supreme power, and the inherent quality of reproduction, there must be dependents and laborers. We cannot all ride in carriages, or there would be none to build them, and the present stock, we think, would in time grow ricketty upon the hands of the most adroit leveler. ”

“ i.e., that, instead of destroying natural inequality, the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality as nature may have set up between men, an equality that is moral and legitimate, and that men, who may be unequal in strength or intelligence, become every one equal by convention and legal right.5
1. ”

“ This prejudice is based on the ground that bad economic conditions and an unwholesome environment are the source of all social evils, and that a better distribution of wealth, or a vast scheme of social welfare, is the one thing necessary, when that is achieved all other things being added unto us, without any further trouble on our part. ”

“ They aim, more or less consciously, more or less outspokenly, at a common degree of social well-being for all the individuals of a community, and, rightly or wrongly, regard inequalities of wealth, even inequalities of industrial power, as imperfect stages of human development that are to be outgrown. ”

“ Community is an exploitation of the strong by the weak. In the system of property inequality of conditions results from force, under whatever name it may disguise itself—force, physical and intellectual; force of circumstances, hazard, fortune; force of acquired property, etc. In community inequality springs from mediocrity of talent and of labor, elevated to an equality with force; and this injurious equation is revolting to conscience and causes merit to murmur.” [128]
We have now our thesis and our antithesis. The synthesis is found in possession. ”

“ We should, therefore, look upon the inequalities which favor individual development, which assist the progress of the race, which excite every man to make an effort to better his condition, as truly desirable.
I have demonstrated how the great legal inequalities which, before the French Revolution, authorized the division of society into classes, have now disappeared, and that what remains, and must of necessity remain, are the natural inequalities resting, on the one hand, on individual faculties, and on the other, on the diversity and the inequality of the conditions wherein we are placed. ”

“ Besides, even in the same kind of work, nominal equality of labour would be so great a real inequality, that the feeling of justice would revolt against its being enforced. All persons are not equally fit for all labour; and the same quantity of labour is an unequal burthen on the weak and the strong, the hardy and the delicate, the quick and the slow, the dull and the intelligent. ”

“ In one shape it may stimulate to enjoyments which actually diminish wealth in general, or, at any rate, to those which lead to the actual exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few; and, on the other hand, to denounce it, simply would be to denounce all the springs of action which raise men above the barbarous state of society. When we look at the contrasts between the rich and the poor, we must rightfully desire a greater equality of distribution ”

“ Some, by intelligence and good conduct, accumulate a capital and enter upon the path of competence and advancement; others, either incapable or improvident, lazy or dissolute, remain in the narrow and precarious condition of men dependent upon the daily casualties of wages.
Thus throughout the whole extent of civil society,—whether among those who depend on labour, or those possessed of property,—diversity and inequality of situation arise and coexist with unity of laws and equality of rights. ”

“ Now, as it would be futile to expect, on the part of the poorest and most ignorant of the population, self-denial and prudence greater than that actually practised by the classes above them, the circumstances of whose life are so much more favourable than theirs for the cultivation of these virtues, the conclusion to which I am brought is this, that unequal as is the distribution of wealth already in this country, the tendency of industrial progress—on the supposition that the present separation between industrial classes is maintained—is towards an inequality greater still. ”

“ With the fact that the division of labor is by nature, pending the attainment of a synthetic organization, an irresistible cause of physical, moral, and mental inequality among men neither society nor conscience have anything to do. That is a fact of necessity, of which the rich man is as innocent as the parcellaire workman, consigned by his position to all sorts of poverty. ”

“ Here, then, was a society adopting inequality, not as the natural product of property, descent and merit, but as its very foundation,—a society, therefore, more aristocratically constituted than those of feudal times. ”

“ They all think of the mass of mankind as being disinherited in one way or another by the present social system, perhaps through the permission of private property at all, perhaps through permission of its inequalities. ”

“ There will forever be inequality in society; but, in my judgment, the time will come when an honest, industrious person need not want. In my judgment, that will come, not through governmental control, not through governmental slavery, not through what is called Socialism, but through liberty and through individuality. I can conceive of no greater slavery than to have everything done by the Government. ”

“ Beside, it is one of the inevitable results of the theory of social equality, a theory which must do a great deal more harm than it yet has done before we abandon it, that, as the wealth and prosperity of the country increases, and new opportunities of making money multiply, the sons of farmers and mechanics will be reluctant to follow the occupations of their fathers. ”

“ Our present society, under the influence of Liberal ideals, has become one which, while it retains immense social inequalities, leaves it open to any man to rise or sink in the social scale. This has resulted from combining capitalism with a measure of "equality of opportunity." ”

“ But the endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society. ”

“ If we, then, ask how far competition would be abolished, we may first make one remark. Such a system, like every other system, requires, for its successful working, that the instincts and moral impulses should correspond to the demands of the society. Absolute equality of property is just as compatible with universal misery as with universal prosperity. A population made up of thoroughly lazy, sensual, stupid individuals could, if it chose, work such a machinery so as to suppress all who were industrious, refined and intelligent. ”

“ Enough may be provided for all by simply taking something from those who have too much. Now, I may probably assume that we all agree in approving the contemplated end—a greater equality of wealth, and especially an elevation of the lower classes to a higher position in the scale of comfort. Every social reformer, whatever his particular creed, would probably agree that some of us are too rich, and that a great many are too poor. But we still have to ask, in what sense it is conceivable that a real suppression of competition can contribute to the desired end. ”