Communism and Inequality: Better and Worse-Off and Worse and Worse

Communism and Inequality
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Communism and Inequality
At a casual glance, communism and inequality may appear unrelated to each other. However, a critical evaluation of the two reveals the contrary since, to a considerable extent, they bear much significance on each other. Communism refers to a social organization where the community owns all property collectively, and members contribute according to their capacity. On the other hand, inequality means a situation where people are unequal in terms of rights, opportunities, and status. That said, inequality, especially Temkin’s theory, can play a prominent role in motivating communism in several situations, including better and worse off and worse and worse.
Better and Worse-Off
In Temkin’s theory of inequality, one way inequality manifests is through disparity in the amount of wealth different people possess in similar circumstances. Temkin poses the question as to which situation would experience more inequality regarding the social standing of individuals. Would inequality be more significant where there are better-off people or the contrary? Further, he wonders which members of the two varying groups should complain more concerning their state of affairs.
In a communism context, answering these questions would be easy for several reasons. First, since communism refers to owning property collectively regardless of one’s contribution, it translates into sharing available resources equally because they equally deserve it. To this end, Temkin gives an example where in a world of n, equally deserving people receive an nth of the total resources since they are entitled to an equal share (...