There is, then, a difference between equality of being, and equality of rights. As Marx sets out in The Critique of The Gotha Programme, the bourgeoisie established the concept of equality on the basis of the equality of being, and a consequent equality of rights. It was revolutionary, precisely because, at the time, there was no concept of such equality. The higher echelons of society were considered superior beings, only a step down from God, with the rest of society occupying ever lower rungs on that ladder. Similarly, those at the top had rights according to their station, and those at the bottom effectively had no rights at all.
In establishing the idea of equality of being, the bourgeoisie broke down the basis of this ordering of society and the social relations, based on it, along with its political and juridical superstructure. It broke down the privileged position of the feudal guild production, with all of its protectionism and monopolies, for example, and posited all commodity owners as free and equal individuals, meeting on equal terms in the market. And, alongside this, it posited, and demanded, therefore, equal political and legal rights – the right to vote, and to equal standing before the law.
But, whilst this was revolutionary compared to feudal society, it was also based upon the lie set out above. Individuals are not all equal/the same. Some have greater needs than others, some have greater abilities, and, thereby, obligations than others. Yet, as Marx sets out in The Critique of The Gotha Programme, if this is to be acknowledged, and acted upon, as set out in the principle “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”, it would require a vast increase in social productivity, so that, indeed, those with the greatest abilities, strength, intelligence and so on contribute fully, but also freely to social production, without concern for proportional recompense, and that those with the greatest needs, for example, those with children, are able to take from social production to meet them, without the requirement to contribute in equal measure.
As Marx notes, even the initial socialist society, emerging from bourgeois society, could not do that. Far from it, which makes all of the moralism of the welfarists and reformists idealist and utopian nonsense that, actually, is, thereby, reactionary, and stands in the way of the transition to Socialism. In The Critique of The Gotha Programme, Marx set this out in relation to the demands of the Lassalleans, at that time, for free, universal education and an end to child labour etc. Capitalism itself, in the developed economies, has so raised productivity, and changed the nature of labour that the first not only became possible, but necessary, whilst the second continues, as seen in the thousands of children that provide free social care in the home to parents and others. But, in the developing economies, Marx's argument against he Lassalleans still applies, and yet the liberals and moralists demand the same rights, in those countries as those only now made possible in developed economies, by their much higher productivity and wealth.
This is simply a reflection of the extent to which bourgeois ideology, and its concept of equality of being is pervasive, even though its clear that no such equality is possible or desirable, because if everyone were truly equal/the same, as in Duhring's abstraction, it would mean no diversity of being, with everyone reduced to the same grey clone of everyone else. Here, that equality of being is not viewed from the standpoint of the individual, but of the economy itself. In other words, the economy of Bangladesh is put on the same equal level as the economy of, say, Britain, and, thereby, expected to provide the same rights to its citizens in terms of education, child-labour, wages and conditions and so on, even though this is clearly impossible. The same applies in respect to its obligations in regard to environmental considerations. It, thereby, necessarily disadvantages the Bangladeshi economy compared to developed economies, and is itself a manifestation of imperialism, and of combined and uneven development.
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