Helina Mekonnen

English 113A
Professor Collins
10/14/2015

Equality is defined as the state of having the same opportunities, rights, status. According to
Modern politics principles a country should make sure that citizens have civil, political, social
and economics right. If this is a question of a must, why is the societies we live in today in
chaos? Such as ongoing protests and violence regarding Black lives matter, xenophobia in South
Africa, violence toward LGBTQ community. Many incidents are taking place in different part of
the world that depicts that human beings are unable to attain bliss and fulfilment. For so many
years, it has been a constant battle for many countries around the world to fulfill all of the rights
to its citizens. Although there have been change brought to the system of rights guaranteed to the
people, it is safe to say that equalities are not imposed to many countries around the word;
equality is not attainable due to many factors that occurs.
Every nation have their own history regarding their political, economic, cultural status they
hold which gives us a scope of the road to equality. Before the United States of America
flourished in 1787, the constitution limited rights such liberty and practiced slavery. Through
time, it got abolished and during the period of Thomas Jefferson, wealth was in the hand of only
few business owners. Money was monitored by the richest member of the society and the lowest
part of the society had no privileges. It wasnt until the American Revolution and civil rights
movement, inspired from the enlightenment theories extended privileges to ever broader classes

of people. In Europe, before the French Revolution of 1789, there was a significant difference
within the society where the bourgeoisie concentrated wealth and the proletarians were suffering
from the injustice and domination of the higher class. During that time the bourgeoisie were the
most significant economic element within France. They concentrated wealth, however the people
had little power or voice. The authorities had centralized the system that few powerful men
benefited from the power and ruled by virtue of personal wealth, nobility by birth. It was only
after a year of the revolution that all power was taken away from kings, churches, nobles. The
central element of 1789 were the implementation of the slogan Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite and
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the citizen. The Revolution shaped the politics, society,
religion and ideas. It helped eradicate the feudal system and allowed the division of property and
put to an end all privileges of nobles. The French Revolution established the concept of equality
and this movement makes it unique than any other revolution in the view of the fact, it wasnt
only national, it influenced the whole world and benefited humanity. In the world, there have
been constant change of governments once in a while and some parts of the world have
experienced alternated form of governments. The United States is a capitalist nation, where
democratie is practiced and respects individual right to own property private production and
economic freedom. The government does not interfere in private property, it supports free
completion and move according to the theory of supply and demand. On the other side of the
word, china, a communist country shuns private ownership of land or any vital resources and
should be owned by the state. Everything owned by the state will be shared equally, decisions
will be made equally by the community through democratie. All decisions taken will be
according to what benefits all. The political landscape is different in the democracy and
communist countries. In a democratic society, people have the right to create political parties and

participate in election. In communist society, the government is controlled by one political party
and contests are not tolerated. The US is widely considered capitalism and large parts of Europe
are considered socialist. Socialists believe economic inequality threatens society and the
government should reduce it via programs. Their theory is based on owning properties in
common.
Though history has it ups and downs, till this day we seem to not have reached equality. Karl
Marx, a socialist believed the main reason behind all the conflicts in the past years was the
attempt of the lower class to obtain power from the upper class which they kept the effort by
retaining it. Since there are inequalities regarding wealth and power possession, lower division
classes constantly try to climb the social economic ladder to get a better life. Moreover, to give a
wide scope of the situation, Marxist perspective helps to analyze all forms of art, literature,
music, visual arts etc. it mainly examines the relationship between the upper and lower class and
the middle class. It looks for oppression of a lower class by the upper class and closely looks
how people are made into commodities to make money off. Harrison Bergeron, a satirical
science fiction by Kurt Vonnegut explicit the division of society. The story is written as a satire to
offer a critique on people beliefs and claims that we should all be equal. Through the Marxist
lens, we can understand that Harrison Bergeron represent the lower class of society by escaping
from prison to declare himself as emperor. This shows that minorities struggle to get equal power
with other classes but it seems impossible because the governments, here represented as
Handicapper general, Diana Moom Glampers shoots Harrison for his attempt of disturbing the
equality system. Diana Moom symbolizes the upper class who holds power. This text is an
allegory that seem to alert us about the consequence of socially enforced equality but also to ask
ourselves if even equality was enforced upon us, will it be maintained or not. Literature is a

reflection of outside inspiration such as from the society. George Orwells work manifests the
system of government in different forms and reveals the problems of our society through his
novels, one in particular Farm Animals. The story in this novel is based on the problems resulting
from Russian Revolution back when stalin was in power. The main message of this book is to
indicate how power can lead to corruption and oppression. In the book, the animals represent the
people. The revolution began in order to establish the law of the land that all animals are equal.
However, over time the pigs put themselves as leaders in a higher position and establishes
hierarchy, which was what the revolution was supposed to eradicate. The hierarchy divided the
animals and they are no longer equal. George Orwell, reveals the defect of the government on
how it can manipulate it citizen through the use of propaganda. Napoleon and squealer
constantly changed the seven commandments in order for them to gain absolute power. The
novel shows how even a revolution with good intentions such as establishing total equality can
devolve into oppressive state. He enhanced the tendency for power to corrupt, as the regime
gained power and privileges, the corruption increased as well.
The effect of social economics issues in a society can also be displayed through literature but
also images. The famous book Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, is a novel that focused on
characters fighting against their exploitation and oppression. It highlights the fact that some do
not have enough to eat while others do not know what to do with all their money. He reflects on
injustices and violence toward vulnerable, poor group of society. The novel chronicles the
corruption of police power and gives the convict no chance of redemption. Jean Val Jean, after
nineteen years of prison, he remained as an outcast in the society. This story describes the
situation we live in today with police brutality towards civilians without reasons. Visual objects
are powerful because a picture is worth a thousand word. Equality to a capitalist and socialist is

viewed differently. In the image we can see three individuals watching a baseball game. These
individual varies in height, the first one is a tall person followed by a medium height person and
a short height person. To a capitalist countries, being equal is to let the three individuals stand on
boxes for them to see the game clearly, yet still the short person is unable to watch the game. For
socialist, Equality is to provide individuals commodities according to their need in order to have
clear perception of the game. To make this fair, two boxes are given to the short person, one box
to the medium height individual and none to the tall person. The strategy is to allow the two
individual be the same height as the first tall person.
Most literatures, arts etc talks about problems that occurred during the time they published it,
such as war, oppression, inequality. The main goal is to raise awareness and find solution to the
problems that occurred fifty years ago but till this day we talk about racism, segregation,
inequality; surely the situation might have got better but it has never vanished. This issue was
exposed through the movie entitled Inequality for All. The movie talks about where United
States stand as of today in point of economic, politics and social point view. It presents the
problems and possible solutions. The politics are divisive and there is an unequal distribution of
money in the society. There are downside for each political system, for instance, the capitalists;
the major share of the profits earned from a business will go to the person who owns the means
of production, while the workers who are responsible for running the business will get a small
share. For communist countries, they erase the idea of individual property and enterprise which
back in days were the reasons for technological innovation. While these are many reasons for a
country to have instabilities, absolute equality seems to be a myth. Some scholars such as
Thomas Jefferson assert that nature has created men equal. However, we see people who are
physically strong while the others are weak. We witness that people dont have the same

intellectual capacity. Thus in our society, we are unequal without even being conscious about
certain things. It is a vast concept, which is why is difficult to attain.
All things considered, the problem of inequalities are demonstrated and revealed through
multiple figures such as literatures, images, videos. Through these form of communication,
authors tend to impose the problem we face in the society and helps to raise awareness which can
help to generate solutions. Equality is certainly not achieved in todays society and if factors such
as politics, economic and social arent stable, we will continue on the path we are today.