It's not even clear that an "equal" society - in the sense of equality of wealth, not isonomy - is desirable. Upward mobility seems to me like an important part of species-being - of striving to move upward in one's society as part of the fun of being alive, as long as that upward mobility goes along with, and not in opposition to, self-realization. In communism, can there be no bildungsroman? That seems sad.
I think this is the dialectical truth which lies behind neoliberal worries about crisis of motivation, etc.
Of course the slope of this uneven distribution should be relatively shallow; we need to bring up the lowest end substantially and reduce the high end dramatically. The SCALE of material inequality in our contemporary moment is, as I'm sure we all agree, grotesque.
Thoughts?
^^^^^^ CB; I'd say you are describing the transitional society in which the "rule" is "from each according to ability , to each according to _work_" , not communism which is "to each according to need". Marxists anticipate that in communism there will not be uneven distribution based on differences in work but rather based on differences in need.
The anthropological evidence is that "upward mobility" as motivation for work is _not_ part of human species-being. The original human societies and for tens of thousands of years, most of the time of th existence of the human species, operated by the principle "to each according to need". They were communist societies, not economic upper and lower classes.