Joe didn’t much care for (understatement alert!) my post setting out an attachment to equality or acceptance of hierarchy as one axis in the division I’m trying to make between ideologies.
I’m not backing down. Let me try and expand on and strengthen what I said in two areas.
First as to Joe’s comment:“The LAST thing communism is, is equal. Not even in misery. Party cadres are always a cut above – essentially, all it does is substitute political power for currency. Failure to understand this is an essential failure to understand Communism in any of its forms.”
Let’s make one thing clear. What’s being discussed are ideals; they are the ideals that are set at the head of the table by a variety of actors, and a variety of groups of actors, each of whom acts in very complex ways.
I’m rereading Walter Russell Mead, in anticipation of having it out, Matrix-style, with David Adelsik, and one of the most powerful things in the book is his recognition that American foreign policy is inevitably something that emerges from a complex and dynamic system of beliefs and interests and hence is something that can’t be fit neatly into a mental container. That acceptance of complexity in his book is contrasted with his effort to pick apart some of the beliefs and perceptions of interest, and set them out in an articulatable way.
Similarly, I’m trying to talk about complex systems of political action and belief, and reduce them, in an effort to come up with some of the ‘articulatable’ subsystems. So yes, I completely understand that Soviet Russia was in fact as hierarchical as the court in Versailles. But the belief system that held that hierarchy together – aside from a private and naked ambition on the part of the participants – was one that idealized the ultimate Worker’s Paradise.
The interesting thing to me right now is the split…the Matrix-like division between the apparent and the real…in these ideologies. And to understand that, we start by understanding the ideal, because that fantasy, that collective dream, is a big part of what ties people to these ideologies and makes them powerful.
Second, Joe says: “You can’t dispense with the question “what kind of equality” when that IS a key question behind your matrix.” No, Joe, it’s not.
The question becomes the relative importance of the “equality of outcome”/”equality of treatment” distinction and the “for equality”/”natural hierarchy” distinction.
I throw my hands up and surrender to the point that there is a real and deep distinction between the two forms of equality (of outcome and of treatment), and that this is itself a significant and fruitful area for exploration.
But I’ll also suggest that there is also an even more significant distinction between a society that holds equality – any kind of equality – as a foundational belief, and one that does not. I used Dickens’ England as an example of a class-driven society; one in which the accepted reality of inequality – in every form, political, legal, economic, and moral – is itself one of the organizing principles of the society. I could have used Elizabeth’s England, or the Persia of Cyrus, but there are more people that know Dickens – and the point is more clearly made by a society closer to us – than either of those.
Those are fundamentally different kinds of societies than those that hold equality as a value, regardless of what kind of equality is being discussed, and that difference ought to be obvious. If it isn’t, imagine for a moment a Persian artisan making an appeal to Cyrus or Darius based on their common humanity, and on some body of common rights. Having trouble?? No kidding…
The notion that people are equal in any way, and that societies should be organized on that principle was a revolutionary one, and one that we sadly take for granted. We shouldn’t.
The “libertarian conservative,” (or maybe it’s the “classical liberal” or “realist libertarian”) compromise here is to say that:
1) Hierarchies are inevitable in human organization. It is impossible to have social relationships without differences in power, money, status, fame, attractiveness, what have you. In fact, as some differences decrease (availability of food, music choices, clean clothes, vacations, etc.) other status symbols will spring up to replace them, regardless of “intrisic worth.” (eating at the right places, wearing the right clothes, listening to the properly popular (or unpopular) music, being able to go to exclusive places, etc.) Anyone who claims otherwise is either deluded or merely trying to substitute a new basis for hierarchy. Any attempts to completely remake society to eliminate all hierarchy will end up creating a new hierarchy, all the more dangerous for denying its own existence.
2) Despite this, it is possible to ameliorate this condition, first by insisting upon the moral and legal equality of all. Secondarily, one can endeavor to make the inevitable hierarchy as fair as possible– such as by decreasing how much the hierarchy depends on rigid, inescapable facts of birth. (There are left-leaning and right-leaning ways to attack this. Rightists are concerned about things like taxes preventing both growth and people getting ahead; they lionize the entrepeneur. It’s easier to see the policies favored by the left to attack this problem.) Thirdly, one can endeavor to make the differences in the hierarchy as trivial as possible– to be about pure status rather than real human wants like getting enough food or clean clothes. (Again, leftists tend to slightly more focus on redistribution and how the pie is shared, rightists tend to focus on growing the pie, figuring that distribution will work itself out.) Of course, people still feel differences in status keenly, but this is still better.
I agree with your position that communism is theoretical a philosophy that consiers everyone as equals – even if, in practice, no communist country has come close to implementing that ideal.
But then again, in what way are people “equal.”
However, I am struggling with this matrix for a couple of reasons. First of all, there seems to be some kind of relationship between the two axis. If a society doesn’t see everyone as equal (as in the Dickensian you reference) then its not truly open in that everyone doesn’t get a voice in shaping policies. Likewise, in a closed society such as communism, not everyone is equal because if you have a disagreement with how things are done, then you become an enemy of a state and become a second class citizen (if not dead).
Second, I am having a hard time placing American political ideologies into the matrix. All would claim to be in favor of an open, equal society but would differ in how to get there. Democrats tend to want a large government to enforce the open, equal ideal, while liberatarians seem to think that people would get to the ideal naturally if the government would just get out of the way. Democrats tend to want to focus on fixing things at home, while Republicans tend to focus on a strong defense to prevent outside forces from destroying what we have.
It seems I have more to say here, but I need to go and think on it a bit.