“Cast off your old selfishness, and plunge into the rising flood of popular equality!” (229 Proudhon). Inequality has been tied into economics since before Smith wrote about The Division of Labour in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The cry for equality made by Proudhon was directly related to the growing economic gap between each social class in the mid 1800’s. The many economic structures react to inequality differently, some ignore it, and some base their entire system off of countering it. The Socialist structure is the most efficient economic system. To deal with inequality but still have societal progression an equal importance should be placed on equality and wealth, such that neither is valued over the other. Socialism manages to place an equal need on both equality and wealth by providing sufficient incentives; a focus on the individual’s needs, and providing the best way to deal with the Commons situation. “Were this incentive to be destroyed, productivity would be so greatly reduced …” (Mises). Without incentives being present in an economic structure, the self-minded humans would always take the easy route out. The Socialist structure is the most efficient economic system with regards to incentives. In a Communist society the incentive is not given to the individual to work for the betterment of society because everything is given to him already. Thus the issue occurs that the progression that is need for a society to flourish is abolished in a Communist structure. Societal progression is a key factor in the preservation of said society. Historically the only reason that the European powers were able to spread the Western-ideas and thoughts during the “Age of Imperialism” was due to the fact that they were all in all more advanced than their acquired territories. For if the Aztecs had swords and rifles the Spanish would not have conquered them so easily, the same can be said about the French in Zaire. “It was precisely Capitalist society that was needed to create the necessary conditions for the original conception of the steam mill to be developed and put into effect. It was Capitalism that created the technology…” (Mises).
The incentives in Capitalism were used to pull through with such innovations as the steam mill. Though Capitalism addresses the need for incentives very well the issue arises that the individual not given the attention it deserves. “So much does the labor’s realization appear as a loss of realization that the worker loses the realization to the point of starving to death” (Marx E.P.M.). Without a focus on equality, the humanity and individuality that everyone deserves disappears. The Socialist structure is the most efficient economic system with regards to focus on the individuals needs. The issue that is found in Capitalism is humans are not valued as humans, they are valued as machines, mere cogs in the corporate clock. “This fact expresses merely that the object which labor produces – labor’s product - confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor which has been embodied in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labor. Labor’s realization is its objectification” (Marx E.P.M.)
The labor of the workers in a Capitalistic system is viewed as independent from the worker. This separation from the worker and the product gives the idea that the worker does not matter because even when the product is purchased all that is seen is the product not the labor or the laborer. This gives opportunities for mistreatment of the laborer and the option to not treat fellow humans as humans. The issues with both Communism and Capitalism can be show in one setting where Capitalism prevails. This is when dealing with the commons. “Property ownership denotes who has the right to control and benefit from a thing. There are three types of property rights: (1) communal, (2)
