We are living under a system that carries with it sometimes crushing forms of coercion and oppression; very painful inequalities; hosts of useless sufferings.

~Simone Weil^[1]

The question of equality has been of primary concern for thinkers and societies since ancient times. It remains as topical in our age as well, since inequalities continue rising.^[2] But the solution to this disparity seems to be unclear, or to be more precise, it is being distorted through liberal and economy-centric parameters of the contemporary capitalist setting.

Liberal thought advances the idea of equality before the law – a passive type of equality where one is supposedly treated the same by State institutions, regardless of their social status. I say supposedly since we see over and over again that this is most often not the case in societies that abide to liberal frameworks. The equality that liberalism professes is highly individualized, one that remains entrapped in the here and now, thus remaining blind for preexisting inequalities. Within this framework a person coming from a lineage of working-class folk and another one, coming from a family of wealthy landowners, are considered as equals in opportunity and before the law. But one such logic tends to (purposefully) forget that there is a dialectical relationship between one’s position within the social ladder and their restrainment by norms and laws. The higher a person is situated within a hierarchy – the lesser he is restrained by the rules that supposedly hold equally for all. That’s why today access to justice is based on how much a person can pay, as a result of which the poor are systemically treated worse than the wealthy.^[3]

Then, there is a progressive strand of equality advocacy, that is, however steeped into economism. It seeks the equalization of income as the main field through which social justice can be achieved. One current of this tendency consists of the advocates of the so called Universal Basic Income.^[4] And while economic equality is most certainly of great importance, it nonetheless, when viewed as the highest form of equality, tends to overlook the source of all social stratification – namely the uneven distribution of power.

Both of the above perceptions of social equality view the dominant status quo as unalterable. In vain they seek to reconfigure certain aspects of the Capital-Nation-State complex so as not to challenge the inherently horizontal flow of power. In their scheme, the great majority can only be at the receiving end of equality, never directly at the distributing one. Thus, they continue being at a precarious position within society, dependent on the benevolence of the ruling stratum. Philosopher Todd May summarizes the problematic nature of these approaches to social equality in the following way:

The problem with the presupposition of liberalism is that, by distributing equality, liberals place most people at the receiving end of the political operation. There are those who distribute equality and those who receive it. Once you start with that assumption, the hierarchy is already in place. It’s too late to return to equality. Equality, instead of being the result of a political process, must be conceived as the presupposition of those who act.^[5]

There is, however, a third approach to equality – one that goes beyond both narrow equality before the law and economism. It is a perception that seeks to equalize the redistribution of power so that social stratification is abolished at its very root – where decisions for life in common are being made. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, freedom and equality are not genuine if equality only exists in the law but is not realized in practice.^[6]

By allowing universal unmediated participation in all decision-making concerning public affairs, we replace the two basic categories of every hierarchical society – the small layer of order-givers and the vast mass of order-takers. In their place a new category is being created – that of the citizen who both rules and is being ruled. In other words, an autonomous individual, who along with their equals, consists an autonomous society. Otherwise, as Mikhail Bakunin warns us:

without political equality – in the true, universal, and libertarian sense in which we understand it – society will always remain divided into two unequal parts. The first, which comprises the great majority of mankind, the masses of the people, will be oppressed by the privileged, exploiting minority[…] The freedom of each is therefore realizable only in the equality of all. The realization of freedom through equality, in principle and in fact, is justice.^[7]

Within this framework, equality is intrinsically linked to political action. It is not a passive state, where most people are on the receiving end, without the opportunity to interfere with the general setting. In short, it is, as Jacques Ranciere explains, a process:

equality is not a common measure between individuals, it is a capacity through which individuals act as the holders of a common power, a power belonging to anyone. This capacity itself is not a given whose possession can be checked. It must be presupposed as a principle of action but it is only verified by action itself. The verification does not consist in the fact that my action produces equality as a result. It enacts equality as a process.^[8]

It is important to note that in order for such a process to be open to all and constantly reassured, it requires a suitable bottom-up institutional framework, as well as a culture of active participation. In this line of thought Cornelius Castoriadis suggests:

Equality of the citizens is of course equality in respect of the law (isonomia), but it is essentially much more than that. It is not the granting of equal passive ‘rights’, but active general participation in public affairs. This participation is not left to chance, but actively promoted both through formal rules and through the general ethos of the polis.^[9]

In this sense, equality is not narrowly materialized through a given legal framework, as liberals tend to imagine, but through the opening of a genuine public space where equality can actively be practiced by all members of society. This implies the creation of an institutional framework based on the broadest possible self-governance, where every single individual is allowed to take unmediated part in the shaping of the rules and norms under which they will have to live. Only in such conditions can we see the foundations of real equality be materialized.

The type of equality discussed here is not some form of romantic “natural state”, to which we can get back once we abolish the contemporary hierarchical system. Instead, it is part of social arrangements and self-instituted organizational structures that guarantee and constantly reassure equity. As Hannah Arendt claims, we are not born equal; we become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights, concluding that our political life rests on the assumption that we can produce equality through organization.^[10] Without setting up a proper democratic framework, then the dangers of other forms of oppression and exploitation are a very real possibility.

How do we proceed in the institution of one such society?  A general answer that applies to different contexts is that we begin with equality as both the means and the ends. It is the starting point, as well as the goal. Equality is the basis on which, as countless social movements around the world have been doing for a long time, we organize our struggles and political projects; on which we form our alliances; on which we approach other movements and struggles. And it is also a goal to be attained in the sense that we need to set up a grassroots institutional framework where equality can be experienced as an active process open to all.

It is within a similar understanding of equality that a new system has been under construction by the communities of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava. There a dense network of local communes confederate with each other through regional councils into an autonomous administration that keeps power as decentralized as possible – a model they have called Democratic Confederalism. As underlined by Duran Kalkan from the Kurdish freedom movement, it is not simply a system that offers everyone a bowl of soup and a hundred-dollar salary, which would imply some sort of stratification of some who provide equality and others who receive it.^[11] 

Instead, at the core of the paradigm, on which the current societal organizational model in Rojava rests is, as Kalkan suggests, that of free organization and equal participation.^[12] It is through the equal redistribution of decision-making power that the old maxim “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is being ensured as a lived reality and as guarantee for a genuine social justice. Because of this, the communities that make up the autonomous administration have been termed as a society with equality at its heart.^[13]

This is also evident in the approach that the autonomous administration has towards gender equality. In contrast to liberal legal frameworks that vest women with mostly passive rights (for example, having the right to wear whatever they like), within the system of Democratic Confederalism they are vested with such rights too, but also with equal share in power. Female active political engagement is ensured by law that requires co-chairing of councils and committees be shared equally between men and women. But more than that, the democratic structures of popular self-governance are open to the female population. According to Kongreya Star (the confederation of women’s movements throughout the region of Rojava), nowadays  women play an active role in the public life of the autonomous administration, with participation rates in the communes averaging between 50% and 70% and in some neighbourhoods reaching 100%.^[14]

This comes to show that while the implementation of Democratic Confederalism in North and East Syria may not be as perfect as we would all like it to be, but it nonetheless presents a deep understanding of equality that seeks genuine social justice, because of which it needs the support of all who seek a more just world.

Having laid down some theoretical and practical foundations, we can suggest that a guiding principle in our struggles of today and of tomorrow, should be Ranciere’s cautious warning that inequality only produces inequality and it does it ceaselessly.^[15] If we place equality only as an aim for the distant future, then we have already lost the fight. Instead, let it be the foundational basis on which we begin building, from today, a more just and democratic society.

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^[1] Simone Weil: Oppression and Liberty (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p122.

^[2] https://www.nuveen.com/global/insights/alternatives/the-megatrend-series/rising-inequality

^[3] https://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/overview

^[4] https://researchfeatures.com/sociocultural-revolution-case-basic-income/

^[5] Todd May: ‘Democracy is Where we Make it: The Relevance of Jacques Ranciere’ in Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy (Volume 13, Issue 1, Spring/Printemps 2009)

^[6] T. Do: Jean Jacques Rousseau’s concept of freedom and equality in the Social Contract. Trans/form/ação, 46(2) (2023), pp305–324. [available online at https://www.scielo.br/j/trans/a/CYJ9Ff7tzjdsMD5Nb8vZwms/#]

^[7] Mikhail Bakunin: Revolutionary Catechism (1886) [available online at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1866/catechism.htm]

^[8] Jacques Rancière: ‘Democracy, Equality, Emancipation in a Changing World’ at Verso’s blog [available online at https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/3395-democracy-equality-emancipation-in-a-changing-world?srsltid=AfmBOopUmnUqY5EsAn3bKq2gEHCi9Uuqx5NC2MlkMmX8ILyeHZbxwLe6]

^[9] David Ames Curtis (ed.): The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p275.

^[10] Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1979), p301.

^[11] Academy of Democratic Modernity (eds.): Democratic Modernity paves the way for Democratic Socialism, (Academy of Democratic Modernity, 2023), p11.

^[12] Ibid

^[13] Rapid Transition Alliance: ‘Rojava in Syria – growing local democracy and defending ecology in the midst of conflict’ in Rapid Transition Alliance [available online at https://rapidtransition.org/stories/rojava-in-syria-growing-local-democracy-and-defending-ecology-in-the-midst-of-conflict/]

^[14] Kurdistan Solidarity Network: The Women’s Movement in Rojava (2016) [available online at https://kurdishsolidaritynetwork.wordpress.com/2016/11/06/the-womens-movement-in-rojava/]

^[15] Jacques Rancière: ‘Democracy, Equality, Emancipation in a Changing World’ at Verso’s blog [available online at https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/3395-democracy-equality-emancipation-in-a-changing-world?srsltid=AfmBOopUmnUqY5EsAn3bKq2gEHCi9Uuqx5NC2MlkMmX8ILyeHZbxwLe6]

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