At a time when the elite stakes its claim to rule on the basis of generalised equality, I think it is right to expose the limitations of that slogan.
However, in more recent times the ruling class has put ever more stress on the virtues of diversity. In the context of social polarisation generated through capitalism, the argument for diversity becomes an apology for social inequality.
So, in a final reductio ad absurdem, prime minister Tony Blair announced his plan to abolish comprehensive education with the demand:
'diversity must become the norm, not the exception'
In message <p05001902b6b25e1a7bd4@[140.254.114.166]>, Yoshie Furuhashi
<furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes
>Gordon says:
>
>>But the Left is supposed to be the party of freedom and
>>equality.
>
>Have you read Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Program"?
>Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right,
>although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while
>the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the
>average and not in the individual case.
--
James Heartfield