>Is this a fair representation of socialists?
>"Very few socialists have ever been or are now in favour of complete material equality." (Brian Barry 1989: 17)
The question is a red herring. Taken literally, almost no socialists would be in favor of COMPLETE material equality. Needs differ. Wants differ. In socialism, if we take the Marxist definition of from each according to her work, people preferred labor/leisure tradeoffs will differs. Some people may prefer to work very little, have very few toys a lot's of spare time. Others may prefer to work very hard, and have lots of toys - and enjoy their work enough not to care about spare time.
Secondly, almost all socialist believe in some degree of equality. That is almost no socialist believes that income and wealth should differ by factors of thousands, let alone tens of thousands or millions.
Within this broad difference there a significant differences. Some people believe that very great differentials in income, and conditions of work are acceptable - cenrtainly by factors of ten, possibly by factors of hundreds. Others believe that socialism requires a pretty damn egalitarian distribution of income - with conditions of work and payment per hour being very close, and only minor variations acceptable.
I think a good case that Marx was on the side of allowing pretty significant inequality. I think this was an issue on which Marx was wrong.