Egalitarianism is a Dead End

Class separation and eventual struggle is inevitable as long as human societies are going at the size that they have been going at since the twentieth century. And no, I'm no Marxist---this conclusion I came to is from mulling about this for a long while. I have always been a fan of egalitarianism, that each person has their rights and ability to contribute with little sense of hierarchy, as much as practically possible. But this is an idealism of sorts, since the specific affinities that each person might have in their contribution and more relatedly, their ability to contribute to society in ``equivalent'' sorts of ways... is just a pipe dream. The truth of the matter is that things almost always start out egalitarian, but as long as [material] resources and [relational] patronship exist, then class distinctions are inevitable as the massing of the resources and/or patronship changes the relative prestige/capability to contribute for each person in profound ways. It is hard to claim that egalitarianism is the ultimate utopian ideal when one can clearly observe the effective difference that affinities of contribution create---is it really possible to equate the ability to command capital with the ability of someone who contributes labour to perform janitorial duty? In that sense then, a society that thinks of egalitarianism as a utopian ideal is doomed to failure; this should not come as a surprise to anyone, except perhaps for the truly idealistic. It is a very sobering thought, though it isn't exactly something truly new. We [as a society] have known that true left-wing approaches are doomed to failure, while true right-wing approaches may look good in the beginning, but all that they can promise is stasis as the highly authoritarian and conservative approach dominates. It's a lose-lose situation, and it is never really clear who can win in the end. Of course we'll root for the ``good guys'', except in this case, who are the ``good guys''? I have no incentive to foster rebellion---it's just an alcohol-induced thought about how the real world works. There is at least somem light optimism in it all---if a substantial number of people believe and project their beliefs out to the world, a change may occur. It would be interesting to see what happens along that particular path... ------ In other news, I've been working my way through the Fist of the North Star manga. It's... pretty cool story-wise and ultra-violence aside. That the strongest fist (``Hokuto Shingen'') draws strength from extreme sadness and anger of its practitioner is a great trope definer. And I think that's about all I want to talk about. I'm a bit sloshed with alcohol to try and avoid thinking about the crazy nonsense that is work. Till the next time.