Eguaglianza e egualitarismo, oggi (da Bobbio a Babeuf e ritorno)

In 1976 Norberto Bobbio wrote an essay called Equality and Egalitarianism that aimed at a better distinction between ideas often used as perfect synonymous. Taking Bobbio’s distinction as a starting point, Vitale faces the very different ideas of equality and inequality, focusing mainly on the egalitarian thought of Gracchus Babeuf and his disciple Filippo Buonarroti. The first period of Babeuf’s thought, before French Revolution, is based on a reformist perspective: the challenge is not to eliminate inequality but to reduce it so as to allow a form of moderate affluence for all. Observing the events of the Revolution, Babeuf gradually changed his mind. If a structural inequality, even if limited, remains, the whole problem will quickly come back as strong as prior to the reform. Thus, if we really desire equality, we have to seek perfect equality, that is to say: Egalitarianism. Buonarroti, in 1828, will detail the social and political institutions of such egalitarian republic. Now the question is: what about liberty? Is it possible to conciliate the new society of total equality with freedom rights and genuine political participation? The answer of History has always been negative. From Mill to Bobbio, the claim for equality takes a more temperate form of liberal socialism. Babeuf was right, however, to foresee that the liberal dimension involves the return to a market society, which is inegalitarian. The entire history of human societies seems to be an unavoidable (asymmetric) pendulum between the efforts to reach equality and the opposing and more successful ones to achieve forms of privilege.