Can society every be truly fair and equal?

You can't end suffering. that's ridiculous.

You can't end suffering. that's ridiculous.

Nobody should suffer. there is no reason why it can't be alleviated. pardon ME for having humanity lol...

Labour, and some other political parties aim to create a fair and equal society. But is this possible?

Do you believe human society is inherently unfair and unequal? Are we naturally inclined to judge and discriminate, based on appearance or personality?

Can this only be achieved through heavy state intervention? Such as controlling our speech and actions. Does this create artificial equality, which only goes to deepen resentment and tension?

Or does humanity have the capacity to reach full fairness and equality, without state intervention?

You cannot end all suffering, lose the god complex.

Inequality is a good. For one it can make people better themselves.

I see. Gift economies have existed in complex, modern societies too. The anarchist communes in the north of Spain utilised a form of gift economy in industrialised cities where money was abolished.

If you were a part of a commune, you were given vouchers (which essentially stated you were a member of the commune) which you could trade in for any good that you needed. So whoever makes a telephone, makes a telephone.

I think equality of wages is supposed to be good for society. Scientific research in book 'The Spirit Level' (by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett) says so. But I think some scientists say they are wrong?



You mean 'inequality of wages' (income inequality) is good yeah? Because if you thought inequality in opportunities is good, then some people are going to not going to have the opportunity to better themselves, by definition.

Here's what I think:-

Things that should be equal? Opportunity, voting, law protection, privacy, safety, freedom.

Things that should not be equal? height, appearance, beauty etc. (because they cant be without huge public spending on plastic surgery), choices, maybe income/material goods if you don't think 'the spririt level' is right.

I guess the problem is how to choose which things are in each list. What would everybody else's list be and why?

Those vouchers seem like a less versatile version of the paper bills we use today. How are they to be distributed amongst the population? In equal proportions despite everyone's level of labor being different? The incentive to work less would be enormous. Also how is individual need determined? There are a lot of superfluous things I own that I couldn't live without, such as my laptop. People would soon learn to express their "needs" more readily and would be rewarded for their greed. On the other hand, receiving only basic sustenance sounds harsh.
Overall I doubt a voucher system or any system relying too much on trust and self sacrifice will work on the scale of a nation. Notice how anarchy never developed beyond a few communities that did not last very long on their own. I doubt any form of anarchy is sustainable in a country of millions let alone billions.

As far as I know, the vouchers just work kind of like a passport. It might not even be according to your needs, as I've said before. I think what it is is that if you're a contributor to the society or community you live in, you're given these kind of vouchers which basically verify you've done work in the community and you can trade that in for whatever.

Key thing within anarchy is that it's not supposed to work within countries. The whole point is that countries don't exist and people work in smaller, autonomous groups for whatever they need. The groups could be on pretty much anything, from geography to common interests and people can be in as many as they want. As far as international trade goes, I guess the intricacies of how to verify your worth for overseas product could be done later.

My personal idea would be to just allow this to all be done through the stockists and there's a specific 'stockist voucher' so wholesalers etc can trade vouchers internationally. I guess it's open to interpretation.

The communities would have to be really small for it to work, and the workforce in each community would be really imbalanced as a result. The original purpose of the cities was to concentrate numerous trades in a single place for easy access. If you've got a handful of men and women economically isolated as a group, you're bound to lack essential jobs, be it doctors or shoe-makers.
The absence of large structures like government would prevent useful projects such as the creation of infrastructure or costly research.

The following applies to the business of making telephones or any other line of work.

Everyone who does their fair share of labour and submits their goods and services to the free association may take from a pool of wealth (hence gift economy). Slackers are NOT provided for, purely with the exception of those genuinely unable to work (though I see no reason why the physically disabled but mentally fit cannot participate in purely administrative tasks). The workers participate in a rota system of labour where they select a variety of work that must consist of an equal division of popular and unpopular labour (what constitutes popular and unpopular is decided upon objectively by collective members of a community). This way everyone gets to do both "good" work and "bad" work and life is not so dull. The socially necessary labour time will be significantly reduced under anarchy since (a) everyone does there fair share and (b) machinery is democratically owned and run rather than sold off/hired out for a profit [machinery can save back-breaking labour]. Administrative tasks are carried out by delegates whose task is to carry out the will of the masses. Delegates differ from representatives since representatives are not accountable for by recall whereas with delegates there would be a petition system and delegates also do not have the power to make new proposals (individuals in the free association can make new proposals which are carried through [if they have enough support - e.g. by means of signatures - so that not too many proposals are carried through at once], debated, discussed, alternatives offered and then voted on at a mass assembly). There are already functioning workers' co-operatives even under present day society (co-operative bank, co-operative supermarket, so forth).

This explanation is only required for those who believe that people wouldn't want to work voluntarily or contribute to society for a feeling of self-fulfilment. I personally believe people would want to better their local neighbourhoods. Since there is a degree of choice, people would choose labour that they are already good at (if they already made telephones, they would probably carry on making telephones most of the week and do other [less skilled] jobs on other days).

Barter economies are inefficient since labour is unco-operative and trade only occurs when there is a double coincidence of wants. Note the distinction between barter and gift economies.

This type of economy would presumably struggle in areas that require skills which take a long time to acquire, no?

With productive labour shared in rota fashion there is more time to spend pursuing education and so forth. So, as an example if someone is successful and makes it as a doctor, they will be rewarded for their long-term pain, which will be measured in terms of the calculated average labour time required to become a doctor (x hours at university, etc.), and added onto the ordinary salary once they become a doctor. As an example, a caretaker may achieve the same productivity as a doctor in so many hours (the former cleans so many surfaces while the latter treats so many patients) and payed the same based on the productivity but an extra percentage may be added on to the doctor's salary based on the expenditure of their time in medical school which will be divided over a long period of time, i.e. until they are retired. This, the socially necessary labour time, is carefully calculated by voluntary members of the community who are given rotating roles to play in the community.

Notice how anarchy never developed beyond a few communities