Equality, Participation, Transition: Essays in Honour of Branko Horvat

3
Egalitarianism On Its Own
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis
3.1 Is equality passé?
Seven decades ago Branko Horvat was born into a world where dramatic
economic inequalities were soon to come under confident assault
by egalitarian movements of the left. The moral case for egalitarian
redistribution was clear, and its practical implementation commanded
wide support among workers and the less well off. But radical egalitarianism
today is the orphan of a defunct socialism. The unruly and
abandoned child of the liberal enlightenment had been taken in by
socialism in the mid-nineteenth century. Protected and overshadowed
by its new foster parent, radical egalitarianism was relieved of the burden
of arguing its own case. As socialism’s foster child, equality would
be the by-product of an unprecedented post-capitalist order, not something
to be defended morally and promoted politically on its own
terms in the world as it is.
It thus fell to reformists, be they labourist, social democratic, Eurocommunist
or New Deal, to make capitalism livable for workers and the
less well off, a task they accomplished with remarkable success in the
advanced economies. But in the process, the egalitarian project was
purged of its Utopian yearnings for a world of equal freedom and dignity,
and narrowed to the pursuit of a more equal distribution of goods.
Over the years, even this project has encountered increasingly effective
resistance and experienced major political reversals.
Is egalitarianism passé? We think not. But recasting the egalitarian project
will require a radical reconsideration of both goals and the means for
achieving them. An apt beginning for this reconsideration is the Atlantic
republicanism of the late 18th century, a tradition born of the tension
between egalitarianism and emergent liberal democratic thought. 1
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