Inequality is *their* word and it carries with it a customary whiff of distinction, justified by merit. The connotation is undeserved but has been instituted through sheer repetition and amplification. Wealth and income are not merely unequal, they are literally lopsided: one side has been lopped off.
That's why I propose substituting for the word "inequality," the word "lopsided," which seems to me to get at the political dimension of the phenomena. http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2014/06/artificial-scarcity-and-lopsided.html On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: > "Equality" and "inequality" are highly ambiguous terms. As Marx pointed > out, > inequality is an essential precondition for equality. > > If John is able to move around only in a wheelchair and in addition needs > a > special diet, it is the height of cruelty to create equality of income > between John and the young and physically vibrant Paul. > > MOREOVER -- > > The current emphasis in left rhetoric on inequality represents (in > practice) a focus on policy as opposed to politics. > > Discussion of Policy (in abstraction from an emphasis on politics) is the > core of idealist and individualist ideology. It is peaceful and lulling to > indulge in endless speculation on the policies that "we" (never a very > clear > term) should adopt in order to 'solve' 'our' 'problems.' > > What the (potentially existing) working class confronts is wholly > political: > it is the question of POWER. We (sic) need to return to October 1898 and > the > following proposition: > > "Then what is it in our day to-day struggles that makes us a socialist > party? It can only be the relation between these three practical struggles > and our final goals. It is the final goal alone which constitutes the > spirit > and the content of our socialist struggle, which turns it into a class > struggle. And by final goal we must not mean, as Heine has said, this or > that image of the future state, but the prerequisite for any future > society, > namely the conquest of political power." > > Carrol > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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