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Aidan O’Brien

Professor Derek Aggleton

Philosophy 297

December 4 2017

Equality, Ideology, and the Root of All Inequality

The free market is the root of all inequality. Although many will defend their right to be

‘free’ and to operate under the umbrella of ‘freedom’ the natural greed, gluttony of lust of human

beings has and will always continue to dominate the better nature of a system that, at its heart, is

oriented around making profit and taking advantage of others. From this has spawned a host of

other inequalities as a result of internalized flaws we are taught to turn a blind eye to, as those

who benefit from the system the most continue to control the way the system is run. Those in

power are bought, those with the money benefit, and those at the bottom suffer just trying to

survive. People are treated as a human resource to an extra buck, and as a result over time

stereotypes have developed that have blinded the majority of humanity to the real issue at hand.

Capitalism isn’t about working hard, or freedom to make decisions; Instead its about who is

willing to step on the most people to make profit. Its about the darkest nature of human

existence, and making others out to be less in some way is just a means of justification for

abominable behavior.

A question: Why did white Europeans feel the need to objectify African Americans and those

of other races, enslave them, and sell them in their own countries? Why did the people in those

societies purchase another person and take ownership of them? For profit. Slave Labor allowed

slave owners to become some of the richest men in their respective societies, and conversely lead
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to major inequality that followed when the system of slavery was allowed to break down while

the system of capitalism still stood tall. These formerly enslaved people had been objectified, and

to most they were tools, not people, whose greatest function in life could be to make their

masters more money and fulfill their every whims. As a result, even after slavery was abolished,

the people still viewed the slaves, and, through the passing down of their beliefs, the descendants

of these slaves, as lesser. As a result, this lead to an almost 200 year struggle for equality that

still hasn’t come close to a conclusion. But the root of this struggle isn’t slavery, its Capitalism.

Without private profit, no one would’ve been incentivized to buy slaves and force them to work.

No one would’ve learned to conceptualize another person as simply a tool for their own personal

gain. The same is true for women and struggles of gender equality as well. For centuries, men

took ownership over their wives, with the profit being the sons she gave to both work for the

father and carry on the line, and daughters to be married off. Similarly, over time the conception

became that women were inherently less intelligent or competent than men, and the struggle for

their own equality continues up until today as well. The point is, Capitalism is the system that

incentivized these inequalities to form through the conception of profit and private ownership.

Despite this, though, the capitalist system still gets off often scot-free in discussions of what

needs to change.

Yes, slavery has been abolished, but the concept of treating others poorly as objects, tools or

as a means of profiting a very small group of people is a concept that should be foreign to no

one. What’s different is how we justify taking advantage of others. The philosopher Althusser,

in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses brings up an idea very similar to this which

explains how people are taken advantage of in modern society without it coming back on the

system. He says “Each mass ejected en route is practically provided with an ideology which suits
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its role in society” (115) and he is absolutely correct. What he means is that people are

conditioned to see what the system needs them to see in order to perpetuate itself, and this idea

manifests itself in scenarios just like the ones we see every day on T.V. When someone sees or is

confronted with problems of the poor, weak, or needy, a common strategy of dismissal has

traditionally been to point to the system of capitalism and say simply “They should work harder.

Anyone can work hard and achieve success, that’s what makes our country great”. However, this

is quite obviously a case of what Althusser is talking about when he talks about people being

conditioned with an ideology not consistent with the reality they surround themselves with. In

Capitalism, oftentimes people work very hard, but are often rewarded with little to nothing if

their financial status is low. And with the gap between the rich and poor increasing every year,

coupled with the shrinking middle-class, attributing problems in Capitalism to lack of effort or

even intelligence becomes increasingly dangerous.

The fact of the matter is, such formed inequality as a result of competition might just be a

natural yet ignored aspect of capitalism. Marx seemed to think the same, as in an excerpt from

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, he drew some of the same conclusions

about capitalism, saying the following:

“Now, therefore, we have to grasp the intrinsic connection between private property, greed, the

separation of labor, capital and landed property; the connection of exchange and competition, the

value and the devaluation of man, of monopoly and competition, etc. The connection between

the whole estrangement of man and the money system” (28)

Marx, a famed critic of capitalism, never really got into talking about the resulting inequalities

that stemmed from the innate desire for greed and competition, but what he does point out is

certainly very visible flaws being ignored by the vast majority of those who live under
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capitalism. Marx hits the nail right on the head in terms of these problems in capitalism, but he

never goes the extra small step. Its from this nature of human competition, from this

objectification of the human condition, that spawned all the inequality in society. In a society

where there is no profit, where no one has more of a say than another, how could anyone have

developed any beliefs of superiority or worth over another? They couldn’t.

Ultimately, Marx believed that once the people became aware of the exploitation of

themselves under capitalism, he believed they would rise up to overturn it, but obviously, that

hasn’t happened, despite the unrest around inequality being at an all-time high. For generations,

capitalism hasn’t been a part of the conversation in terms of problems we need to address, when

in actuality, it has been problem number 1, because when we take profit out of the equation,

suddenly the world would suddenly begin to look a lot more equal, as no one would feel

motivate to enslave, own, or degrade another over what he possesses relative to another. Take

out the concept of profit, and all of a sudden everyone becomes equal.
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Works Cited:

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses(Notes towards an Investigation).”

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser 1969-70,

www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Foreign Languages

Pub. House, 1956.