A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

Substantive equality and the end of domination
Capitalism engenders inequality on a scale never seen in history. Abolishing
this scandalous disparity is essential in the struggle for Common
Good. Because, as Mészáros puts it, only on this basis ‘it is possible to
envisage the necessary non-antagonistic forms of mediation among
human beings at all levels, in a historically sustainable way’. 53 This is
about equality on all possible levels: North/South, wealth within national
borders, production relations (see previous point), gender, sexual inclination,
ethnicity, faith, etc. As long as people of the South are victims
of the system while people of the North benefit from it Common Good
is out of the question. 54 And the same is true for the other mentioned
inequalities. Wilkinson and Pickett demonstrate convincingly that inequality
within rich countries causes a lot of pernicious effects. Among
others it shortens life and make people more unhappy, it increases the
rate of violence, teenage pregnancies, addiction and imprisonment, and
encourages excessive consumption. 55 In my view the aspect of equality
is underexposed in the text.
Combined social problem score
Odd couples
Japan and Sweden are chalk and cheese societies. Sweden has a big welfare
state and a progressive stance on women’s rights, whereas in Japan the government
is a small spender by international standards and traditional gender
divides remain important. But in both countries incomes are unusually evenly
spread, and the chart reveals that both suffer from fewer social problems than
other industrial societies.
Odd couples
Spain and Portugal are
Mediterranean neighbours
with many cultural
connections and
close parallels in their
recent history – both
democratised in the
1970s after the fall of
authoritarian re gimes.
One difference is that
Spain is the more ethnically
diverse, and diversity
in sometimes
said to strain social solidarity. But Spain is mid-table in the in equality league
while Portugal is near the top. And the chart shows that the Portu guese side
of the Iberian peninsula has many more social problems
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