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The Egalitarian Worldview
The egalitarian worldview is vigilant against any dynamic where the few are privileged above the many. Someone who is narrating from the egalitarian worldview will be vigilant against any person, group of people, or broader entity that might be seeking to cheat the common people out of an equal share in the fruits of their labor.
The egalitarian worldview is made up of three sub-narratives, each of which presents a different permutation of the sentence “The Victim is abused by the Villain.”
- Reciprocity – “The Virtuous People are cheated by the Selfish Elites.” (Egalitarian vs. Libertarian)
- Nation – “The Virtuous People are cheated by Dangerous Enemies.” (Egalitarian vs. Dignitarian)
- Accountability – “The Virtuous People are cheated by the Bad King.” (Egalitarian vs. Securitarian)
Examples of the Reciprocity Narrative
The virtuous people are cheated by the selfish elites.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostel camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
Jean-Jacques Roussaeu
Second Discourse (1755)
Finally, consuming ambition, the fervor to raise one’s relative fortunes less out of true need than in order to place oneself above others, inspires in all men a base inclination to harm each other…. All these evils are the first effect of property, and the inseparable effects of nascent inequality.
William Jennings Bryan
“Cross of Gold” Speech at the Democratic National Convention (July 9, 1896)
But we stand here representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.
Jürgen Habermas
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (1989)
The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.
Examples of the Nation Narrative
The virtuous people are cheated by dangerous enemies.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Communist Manifesto (1848)
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority…. Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the Bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (translated by George J. Becker, 1946/1995)
The anti-Semite has no illusions about what he is. He considers himself an average man, modestly average, basically mediocre. There is no example of an anti-Semite’s claiming individual superiority over the Jews. But you must not think that he is ashamed of his mediocrity; he takes pleasure in it; I will even assert that he has chosen it. This man fears every kind of solitariness, that of the genius as much as that of the murderer; he is the man of the crowd. However small his stature, he takes every precaution to make it smaller, lest he stand out from the herd and find himself face to face with himself.
Maximilien Robespierre
(quoted in John W. Boyer, University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, Volume 7: The Old Regime and the French Revolution, 1987)
Thus everything that tends to excite love of country, to purify morals, to elevate souls, to direct the passions of the human heart toward the public interest, ought to be adopted or established by you…. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish, in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people’s enemies by terror.
Eva Duarte de Perón (Evita)
“Speech to the Descamisados” (October 17, 1951)
Let the enemies of the people, of Perón and the Fatherland come. I have never been afraid of them because I have always believed in the people. I have always believed in my beloved descamisados because I have never forgotten that without them October 17 would have been a date of pain and bitterness, for this date was supposed to be one of ignominy and treason, but the courage of this people turned it into a day of glory and happiness. Finally, compañeros, I thank you for all your prayers for my health; I thank you with all my heart. I hope that God hears the humble of my Fatherland so that I can quickly return to the struggle and be able to keep on fighting with Perón for you and with you for Perón until death.
Examples of the Accountability Narrative
The virtuous people are cheated by the bad king.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The German Ideology (1845/1932)
To such modern private property corresponds the modern state which has been gradually bought by property owners through taxes, has fallen entirely into their hands through national debt, and has become completely dependent on commercial credit they, the bourgeois, extend to it in the rise and fall of government bonds on the stock exchange. Being a class and no longer an estate, the bourgeoisie is forced to organize itself nationally rather than locally and give a general form to its averaged interest. Through the emancipation of private property from the community, the state has become a separate entity beside and outside civil society. But the state is nothing more than the form of organization which the bourgeois by necessity adopts for both internal and external purposes as a mutual guarantee of their property and interests.
Ronald Reagan
“Inaugrual Address” (January 20, 1981)
We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we’re sick—professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, ‘We the people,’ this breed called Americans.
Mikhail Bakunin
(quoted in E. H. Carr, Mikhail Bakunin, 1961)
I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because humanity is for me unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State, whereas I want the abolition of the State, the final eradication of the principle of authority and the patronage proper to the State, which under the pretext of moralizing and civilizing men has hitherto only enslaved, persecuted, exploited and corrupted them.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n 558 U.S. 310
Opinion of Justice Stevens, with concurrence and dissent in part by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor (January 21, 2010)
In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.
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