The Last Oppression: Egalitarian Society of the Future

Part 1 Introduction

Throughout human history, societies have struggled with various forms of oppression—slavery, feudalism, colonialism, apartheid, and discrimination based on race, gender, and religion. Many of these injustices have been confronted, challenged, and in some cases, dismantled. Yet one form of oppression persists across nearly every society on Earth: economic inequality. The stratification of humanity into rigid social and economic classes represents what some philosophers and activists consider the "last oppression"—the final barrier to a truly egalitarian future where all people enjoy equal dignity, opportunity, and material security.

This essay explores the vision of a classless society, examines real-world economic movements toward greater equality, and presents the voices of those who believe that the abolition of class distinctions is not only desirable but necessary for human flourishing. While the complete elimination of economic classes remains an aspiration rather than a reality, growing economic experiments and philosophical movements suggest that humanity may be inching toward a future where class-based oppression becomes obsolete.

The Nature of Class Oppression

Class oppression differs from other forms of discrimination in its pervasiveness and its tendency to intersect with and amplify other inequalities. Unlike racism or sexism, which divide humanity along particular identity lines, classism affects people of all backgrounds, creating hierarchies that determine not just material wealth but access to education, healthcare, justice, political power, and even life expectancy.

The philosopher and social theorist Michael Albert has articulated this concern powerfully: "Economic relations shape our daily lives, our options, our consciousness, and our prospects more than any other social relations... The economic dimension of social life is not peripheral, it is central." Albert, co-founder of the participatory economics movement, argues that until we address the fundamental inequalities embedded in our economic systems, other forms of liberation will remain incomplete.

Class oppression operates through multiple mechanisms: the concentration of wealth and productive resources in the hands of a small elite, the transformation of human labor into a commodity to be bought and sold, the political capture of democratic institutions by wealthy interests, and the cultural naturalization of inequality as inevitable or even desirable. These mechanisms create what social scientists call "structural violence"—harm that results not from individual acts of cruelty but from the way social institutions are organized.

Historical Visions of Classless Society

The dream of a society without class distinctions is ancient, appearing in religious texts, utopian literature, and philosophical treatises across cultures. From Plato's Republic to Thomas More's Utopia, from the early Christian communities described in the Acts of the Apostles to the medieval heretical movements like the Diggers and Levellers, human beings have repeatedly imagined alternatives to hierarchical social organization.

The modern articulation of classless society, however, finds its most influential expression in socialist and communist thought. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels envisioned a future where "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." In their analysis, class conflict was not an eternal feature of human nature but a historical phenomenon that would eventually be overcome. Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto: "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."

While 20th-century attempts to implement these visions often resulted in authoritarian regimes that created new forms of oppression, the fundamental critique of class society and the aspiration toward economic equality have persisted and evolved. Contemporary thinkers have refined these ideas, learning from past failures while maintaining the core commitment to eliminating class-based hierarchies.

Contemporary Voices for Economic Equality

Many contemporary scholars, activists, and public figures have articulated compelling arguments for moving toward a single social and economic class. Their perspectives offer both moral critiques of inequality and practical visions for more egalitarian alternatives.

Peter Joseph, founder of The Zeitgeist Movement, has been particularly vocal about the need to transcend class society entirely. He argues: "The monetary-market system is incapable of creating a sustainable society... The very foundation of the market economy is based on scarcity, competition, and differential advantage—all of which are antithetical to a peaceful, collaborative, and sustainable civilization." Joseph envisions a "Natural Law Resource-Based Economy" where technology and scientific method are used to provide abundance for all, eliminating the material basis for class distinctions.

Grace Lee Boggs, the legendary American philosopher and social activist, spoke extensively about the need for revolutionary transformation that goes beyond superficial reforms. She observed: "We are at a point in human evolution where we have to change ourselves in order to change the world. The crisis is not just economic or political. It is a crisis of our concept of what it means to be a human being." Boggs argued that true equality requires not just redistribution of wealth but a fundamental reimagining of human relationships and values.

Richard Wolff, Marxist economist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has dedicated his career to advocating for workplace democracy and the elimination of the capitalist class structure. He frequently states: "The employer-employee relationship is fundamentally undemocratic. In a genuine democracy, the people doing the work should collectively and democratically make the decisions about what to produce, how to produce it, and what to do with the profits." Wolff promotes worker cooperatives as a transitional form toward a classless economic system.

Bell hooks, the influential cultural critic and feminist theorist, connected class oppression to other forms of domination, writing: "The significance of class in determining the direction of our lives, the size of our dreams, the nature of our fears, is rarely examined fully. Class matters. Yet the American consciousness is currently not willing to acknowledge this truth." She advocated for a society where class distinctions would be abolished alongside racism and patriarchy.

Noam Chomsky, while known primarily for his work in linguistics and his critique of American foreign policy, has consistently argued for economic democracy. He has stated: "Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level." Chomsky envisions a libertarian socialist society organized around voluntary cooperation and mutual aid rather than hierarchical control.

Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Greek Finance Minister, while not advocating for the immediate abolition of all economic classes, has argued for radical democratization of the economy. He notes: "The greatest source of wealth and power has been privatised in a manner that defeats the purpose of capitalism itself... We need to democratize the firm, the markets, and even the money supply." His vision involves transitioning toward economic systems where distinctions between owners and workers are eroded.

C. Wright Mills offered one of the most penetrating analyses of modern class structure in his concept of the power elite. Writing in the mid-twentieth century, Mills observed that political, economic, and military institutions had fused into a single ruling nexus that shaped the course of national and global events. “The power elite,” he wrote, “occupy the command posts of the dominant institutions: the economy, the political order, and the military.” His insight remains strikingly relevant in the digital era, where corporate conglomerates, financial networks, and information systems often operate beyond democratic oversight. From a psychological perspective, the persistence of this elite reflects society’s internalization of hierarchy—our collective tendency to defer to authority and equate leadership with superiority. To transcend classism, then, is not only to redistribute wealth but to dismantle the mental architecture that legitimizes concentrated power. Mills’s work reminds us that true equality demands both institutional reform and a revolution in awareness—one that replaces passive conformity with active civic consciousness..

Economic Experiments Moving Toward Equality

While no large-scale economy has successfully eliminated all class distinctions, several significant experiments and trends demonstrate movement in that direction, offering glimpses of what a more egalitarian future might look like.

The Mondragon Corporation

Perhaps the most successful example of an alternative economic model is the Mondragon Corporation in Spain's Basque Country. Founded in 1956, Mondragon is a federation of worker cooperatives that operates internationally with over 80,000 employee-owners. Unlike traditional corporations where shareholders and executives comprise a distinct ownership class separate from workers, Mondragon operates on the principle of "one worker, one vote."

The corporation maintains strict pay ratios, with the highest-paid worker earning no more than six times the lowest-paid worker (compared to ratios of 300:1 or higher in typical large corporations). This structure dramatically reduces class distinctions within the organization. Workers share in profits, participate in decision-making, and enjoy job security that far exceeds that of workers in conventional firms.

Mondragon's success—it's now one of Spain's largest corporations—demonstrates that economic enterprises can function efficiently and competitively without the traditional capital-labor class divide. As one Mondragon cooperative member explained: "We are neither bosses nor employees. We are all worker-owners, and that changes everything about how we relate to each other and to our work."

Nordic Social Democracies

While the Scandinavian countries maintain market economies and have not eliminated class distinctions, they have significantly compressed economic inequality through comprehensive social policies. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland have implemented systems that provide universal healthcare, free education through university level, generous parental leave, strong unemployment benefits, and substantial public pensions.

These nations consistently rank highest on measures of social mobility, meaning that a person's economic class at birth has less influence on their ultimate life outcomes than in more unequal societies. The Nordic model demonstrates that policy choices can substantially mitigate class-based oppression even within capitalist frameworks.

Norway, in particular, has used its oil wealth to create a sovereign wealth fund that now exceeds $1.4 trillion—effectively socializing the returns from natural resources for the benefit of all citizens rather than allowing a capitalist class to capture those gains. Every Norwegian citizen, in a sense, is a partial owner of this collective wealth.

Kerala, India

The Indian state of Kerala offers a compelling example of how political commitment to equality can transform outcomes even in a relatively poor region. Through decades of democratically elected communist and socialist governments, Kerala has achieved literacy rates above 95%, life expectancy comparable to developed nations, and dramatic reductions in poverty—all while maintaining significantly greater economic equality than the rest of India.

Kerala's approach has emphasized land reform that redistributed property from landlords to tenant farmers, strong labor unions, universal public services, and community-based development. While class distinctions have not been eliminated, they have been substantially reduced compared to other regions with similar resource constraints.

Rojava's Democratic Confederalism

In northeastern Syria, the autonomous region known as Rojava has experimented with a political-economic system called "democratic confederalism" inspired by the theories of Abdullah Öcalan. This system emphasizes direct democracy, cooperative economics, gender equality, and ecological sustainability.

Rojava has established numerous worker cooperatives, collectivized land ownership in many areas, and created communal economies where resources are shared according to need. While the ongoing conflict in Syria makes it difficult to fully assess this experiment, reports suggest significant movement toward economic equality and the erosion of traditional class structures. The system aims to eventually eliminate the distinction between owners and workers entirely, with all economic enterprises managed democratically by those who work in them.

The Zapatista Communities

In Chiapas, Mexico, the Zapatista communities have operated since 1994 with economic systems based on collective ownership, mutual aid, and direct democracy. The Zapatistas have rejected the Mexican state's economic model and created autonomous municipalities where land is held collectively, decisions are made in community assemblies, and class distinctions have been largely dissolved.

The Zapatista motto "Para todos todo, nada para nosotros" ("Everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves") reflects a commitment to equality that has shaped their economic practices. While living standards remain modest, the communities have achieved substantial improvements in education, healthcare, and food security while maintaining economic egalitarianism.

Universal Basic Income Experiments

Numerous cities and countries have experimented with Universal Basic Income (UBI)—unconditional cash payments to all citizens regardless of employment status. Finland, Kenya, Stockton (California), and other locations have conducted pilot programs.

While UBI itself doesn't eliminate class distinctions, proponents argue that it represents a step toward decommodifying human existence—separating one's right to material security from one's position in the labor market. If implemented at sufficient levels, UBI could reduce the economic desperation that forces people to accept exploitative employment relationships, thereby eroding one mechanism that maintains class hierarchies.

The concept has attracted support from diverse political perspectives. Futurist and author Rutger Bregman has argued: "Poverty is not a lack of character; it's a lack of cash... A basic income would give people the security to take risks, to pursue education, to do meaningful work rather than just any work." By providing a economic floor beneath which no one can fall, UBI could enable a society where class origin matters less for life outcomes.

Platform Cooperativism and the Digital Economy

As the digital economy has created new forms of precarious labor and concentrated wealth in the hands of a few platform owners, a counter-movement has emerged. Platform cooperativism applies cooperative principles to digital labor platforms, allowing workers to collectively own and democratically govern the platforms they work through.

Examples include Stocksy (a cooperative alternative to stock photography sites), Resonate (a cooperative music streaming platform), and Green Taxi Cooperative (a driver-owned alternative to Uber). These initiatives challenge the notion that digital platforms must be owned by a separate capitalist class and operated for shareholder profit rather than worker and user benefit.

Trebor Scholz, scholar and co-founder of the Platform Cooperativism Consortium, argues: "Platform cooperativism is about cloning the technological heart of Uber, Amazon, or Upwork, but leaving behind the labor abuses and spying on workers. It's about bringing democratic ownership to the digital economy." This movement envisions a future where the worker-owner divide in the digital economy is eliminated.

Time Banking and Gift Economies

On a smaller scale, time banking systems have emerged in communities worldwide, creating local economies based on mutual exchange rather than money. In time banks, people trade services based on time rather than market value—an hour of legal advice equals an hour of childcare equals an hour of home repair. This system eliminates the economic class distinctions that typically assign vastly different values to different types of work.

While time banks remain supplementary to mainstream economies, they demonstrate that alternative value systems can successfully coordinate economic activity without creating class hierarchies. Edgar Cahn, founder of the time banking movement, describes it as "a way to rebuild the caring economy and recognize that everyone has something to contribute, regardless of their economic class or professional credentials."

The Technological Path to Post-Scarcity

Many contemporary theorists argue that advancing technology is making class-based society obsolete by enabling potential abundance rather than scarcity. If automation and artificial intelligence can produce enough goods and services for everyone, the traditional justifications for inequality—that scarcity requires differential reward systems to incentivize production—lose their force.

Paul Mason, British journalist and author of PostCapitalism, argues: "We're surrounded by examples of a new economy emerging—all made possible by information technology... The main contradiction today is between the possibility of free, abundant socially produced goods, and a system of monopolies, banks and governments struggling to maintain control over power and information." Mason envisions a transition to what he calls "postcapitalism" where information goods become free, working time is reduced, and class distinctions gradually disappear.

Aaron Bastani, author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, makes an even bolder claim: "For the first time in human history, we can produce enough for everyone. The old excuses for inequality—scarcity, the need for incentives—are becoming obsolete." Bastani argues that renewable energy, automated production, and artificial intelligence can create a world of abundance where the material basis for class society simply evaporates.

These techno-optimistic visions face serious critiques—technology is currently concentrating wealth rather than distributing it, and the environmental costs of unlimited production may be catastrophic. Nevertheless, they point to a real possibility: that technological development could enable economic organization without class hierarchies if societies choose to direct technological capabilities toward equality rather than profit maximization.

The Moral Case for Classlessness

Beyond practical experiments and technological possibilities, there exists a compelling moral argument that class society is fundamentally unjust and should be transcended.

The philosopher John Rawls, in his influential work A Theory of Justice, proposed the "veil of ignorance" thought experiment: if we designed a society without knowing what position we would occupy in it, what principles would we choose? Rawls argued that rational people would reject systems with rigid class hierarchies because they might end up on the bottom. This reasoning suggests that class society cannot be justified from an impartial moral standpoint.

Cornel West, philosopher and social activist, has eloquently connected class oppression to human dignity: "We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence... You can't have a world where rich people exploit poor people and claim it's a just society." West's work emphasizes that class divisions corrupt human relationships by creating inequalities of power and respect that undermine genuine community.

The capability approach, developed by economist Amartya Sen and philosopher Martha Nussbaum, evaluates social arrangements based on whether they enable people to achieve valued functionings and capabilities. From this perspective, class society is unjust because it systematically denies people in lower classes the capability to live flourishing lives. Nussbaum has written: "A decent society protects for all citizens a threshold level of key opportunities, or 'capabilities'... Creating genuine opportunity means addressing not only formal political rights but also the distribution of material resources."

The psychological costs of class society also warrant moral consideration. Research consistently shows that societies with greater inequality experience higher rates of mental illness, anxiety, depression, and social mistrust—even among relatively affluent citizens. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, in their book The Spirit Level, demonstrate that inequality harms social cohesion and individual wellbeing across the class spectrum, suggesting that everyone would benefit from greater equality.

Martin Luther King Jr., in his later years, increasingly focused on economic justice, arguing: "We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... We are dealing with class issues... We must have had a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism." King understood that political equality without economic equality remained incomplete liberation.

Obstacles and Challenges

Despite moral arguments and practical experiments, significant obstacles impede movement toward classless society. Understanding these challenges is essential for realistic assessment of possibilities.

First, concentrated economic power translates into political power, allowing wealthy elites to shape laws, regulations, and cultural narratives to preserve their advantages. The political scientist Thomas Ferguson has documented how policy outcomes correlate far more strongly with elite preferences than with popular opinion, a phenomenon he calls the "investment theory of political parties."

Second, class divisions are reinforced by social and cultural mechanisms—educational credentialing, social networks, cultural capital, and residential segregation—that extend beyond purely economic factors. Pierre Bourdieu's work on social reproduction shows how class positions are transmitted across generations through multiple mechanisms that are difficult to disrupt.

Third, many people internalize ideologies that justify inequality. The "just world hypothesis" leads people to believe that existing distributions of wealth and status reflect merit and effort. The notion of meritocracy—that social position reflects individual talent and work—serves to legitimize class hierarchies even when actual social mobility is limited.

Fourth, some argue that incentive structures require inequality. If rewards don't differentiate based on contribution or skill, why would people exert effort, take risks, or invest in developing capabilities? While examples like Mondragon suggest that motivation can be sustained with dramatically compressed inequality, the question of whether significant material differentials are necessary for economic dynamism remains contested.

Fifth, previous attempts to abolish class society through revolutionary means often created new forms of oppression and inequality. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, and other communist states developed new ruling classes—party bureaucrats and state managers—whose privileges sometimes rivaled those of capitalists. These historical failures have generated justified skepticism about whether classless society is achievable or even desirable.

Finally, global capitalism's immense productive power creates vested interests among hundreds of millions of people who benefit from current arrangements, even if they're not among the ultra-wealthy. Small business owners, professionals, and skilled workers in developed nations often perceive their interests as aligned with the continuation of class-stratified capitalism rather than its transformation.

Pathways Forward

Despite these obstacles, various pathways toward greater economic equality and eventual elimination of class distinctions have been proposed:

Gradualist Reform: This approach emphasizes incremental changes within existing systems—strengthening labor unions, increasing progressive taxation, expanding social services, regulating corporate power, and promoting worker cooperatives. The idea is that small steps, accumulated over time, can gradually transform class relations without requiring revolutionary rupture. This is essentially the path that Nordic countries have pursued with considerable success.

Revolutionary Transformation: This tradition argues that class society cannot be reformed away because ruling elites will resist any changes that threaten their fundamental interests. Revolutionary approaches advocate for bottom-up social movements that build alternative institutions while confronting existing power structures. The Zapatistas represent a contemporary example of this approach, creating autonomous zones with different economic logic rather than attempting to reform state-level politics.

Technological Disruption: Some theorists believe that technological development—particularly automation, artificial intelligence, and decentralized networks—will make existing class structures unsustainable, forcing reorganization along more egalitarian lines. This perspective emphasizes developing technologies and institutions that enable peer-to-peer cooperation and distributed ownership rather than concentrated control.

Consciousness Transformation: This approach, emphasized by thinkers like Grace Lee Boggs, argues that external social change requires internal personal transformation. People must develop new values, identities, and ways of relating that don't depend on class hierarchies. This path emphasizes cultural work, education, and community building as foundations for economic transformation.

Hybrid Strategies: Most contemporary movements combine elements of multiple approaches—pursuing reforms that expand immediate wellbeing while building alternative institutions that prefigure post-class society while fostering consciousness change that makes more radical transformation thinkable.

Conclusion To Part One

The vision of a society without class distinctions—where economic inequality doesn't divide humanity into castes with vastly different life prospects—remains controversial and contested. Yet this vision has inspired countless movements, experiments, and theoretical frameworks that continue to shape human possibilities.

The evidence suggests that while complete elimination of all economic differentiation may be difficult to achieve and sustain, dramatic reductions in class-based inequality are clearly possible. The Nordic countries, worker cooperatives like Mondragon, and various communal experiments demonstrate that societies can function successfully with far greater equality than currently exists in most of the world.

The moral case for moving toward classlessness is strong: class hierarchy corrupts human relationships, denies dignity and opportunity to millions, generates psychological suffering even among the relatively privileged, and prevents humanity from directing its collective capacities toward shared flourishing rather than zero-sum competition.

As technology advances, creating potential abundance and reducing necessary labor, the material justifications for class society weaken. The question becomes less whether we can afford equality and more whether we possess the collective will and imagination to reorganize social institutions accordingly.

The "last oppression" of class may indeed be the most difficult to overcome because it is embedded in economic systems that structure daily life, defended by concentrated power, and justified by ideologies that present inequality as natural or inevitable. Yet humans have overcome systems of oppression that once seemed eternal—slavery, feudalism, formal colonialism, explicit apartheid. The fact that class oppression persists doesn't mean it must persist forever.

As Michael Albert writes: "The question isn't whether a better world is possible—we know it is. The question is whether we will struggle to achieve it." The egalitarian society of the future, where class oppression becomes a historical memory rather than a lived reality, will emerge not from inevitable historical laws but from conscious choices, institutional experiments, and sustained commitment to human equality.

The path forward requires both imagination and pragmatism—the ability to envision radically different possibilities while pursuing concrete steps that expand equality, democracy, and dignity within existing constraints. It requires learning from past failures while maintaining hope that human creativity and solidarity can eventually transcend the hierarchies that have divided us.

Whether the "last oppression" will truly be overcome remains uncertain. What is certain is that the struggle for a classless society continues to animate movements worldwide, generating experiments, ideas, and practices that slowly expand the boundaries of what seems possible. In that ongoing struggle lies the potential for a future where economic class becomes as archaic and indefensible as the divine right of kings—a relic of humanity's hierarchical past rather than an inescapable feature of its future.

Part 2 Automation and the Final Frontier of Equality

The “last oppression” of economic inequality has persisted even as humanity has dismantled many other social injustices. Yet, a new force is emerging that could radically reshape the structure of human economies: the rise of automation and android workers. If guided by egalitarian principles, the coming age of intelligent machines could mark the beginning of the end of class-based hierarchies, creating a world where labor is decoupled from survival, and wealth is generated and distributed for collective well-being rather than private profit.

Android Labor and the End of Exploitation

In most societies, economic inequality is sustained by the unequal control of labor and production. Those who own productive resources—factories, data networks, capital—exploit those who must sell their labor to survive. The introduction of autonomous android workers challenges this ancient power dynamic. If machines can perform the world’s necessary labor—manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, even creative work—then the need for human labor as a commodity may vanish.

In this post-labor world, production would no longer depend on coercion, wage labor, or competition for jobs. Androids could work tirelessly, safely, and efficiently, liberating human beings from the economic necessity that has defined civilization since agriculture. Rather than deepening inequality, as automation has so far under capitalism, android labor could—under collective ownership—eradicate the economic mechanisms that sustain class itself.

A Post-Scarcity Economy: The Technological Basis of Equality

Automation offers a pathway toward what futurists call a post-scarcity economy—an order in which abundance replaces scarcity as the defining feature of production. With androids maintaining agriculture, infrastructure, and manufacturing, and with artificial intelligence managing logistics and energy distribution, material needs could be met for all people with minimal human input.

However, whether this leads to equality or domination depends on ownership. If androids and their productive networks remain under private control, wealth will concentrate further in the hands of those who own the machines. But if societies establish public, cooperative, or commons-based ownership of automated systems, the abundance created could be shared universally. Every individual could become a beneficiary of global productive capacity rather than a competitor for dwindling resources.

The End of Economic Class

In a society where androids perform most labor, the basis of class stratification—control of labor and production—disappears. Without a working class to exploit, and without a capitalist class to own production, humanity could transition toward a universal class of equals, where economic identity is no longer tied to occupation, status, or inherited privilege.

Citizens might receive a universal share of the output generated by android production, providing guaranteed housing, food, and energy. Education and creativity could become the new frontiers of human aspiration. Wealth would shift from private accumulation to collective management, ensuring that the benefits of machine labor elevate all people rather than a privileged few.

The Risk of Technological Oligarchy

The same forces that could enable equality could also entrench oppression if left unchecked. Automation under corporate control could produce a world where a handful of technocrats and AI owners dominate a permanently unemployed population. This “digital feudalism” would deepen class divisions beyond repair, with androids enforcing hierarchy rather than abolishing it.

Thus, the moral imperative of the coming age is to ensure democratic control over automation. Public ownership, cooperative AI design, and open-source robotics may be essential to preventing the rise of a new economic elite. The question, as Michael Albert suggests, is not whether equality is possible, but whether humanity will struggle to achieve it.

The Egalitarian Horizon

The emergence of android labor marks a turning point in human history. For the first time, we can envision an economy that provides for all without exploitation. The potential end of class society is no longer a utopian dream—it is a technical possibility awaiting ethical realization.

Automation offers the tools to overcome the “last oppression.” Whether it leads to liberation or domination will depend on our collective choices: who owns the androids, who controls the algorithms, and whether humanity has the courage to align technology with justice.

If guided wisely, the coming age of android workers could achieve what millennia of revolutions, reforms, and philosophies have sought: a world where no one is master or servant, and where the abundance of the machine age nourishes the dignity and equality of all.

The Risk of Virtual Substitution and Escapist Classism

As technology advances toward immersive virtual realities and digital consciousness, a new form of classism threatens to emerge—one not based on material wealth, but on access to authentic existence. The more convincing artificial worlds become, the greater the temptation to abandon the imperfect realities of social responsibility and human struggle. If individuals retreat into personalized digital utopias, the shared ground of reality—the foundation of empathy, justice, and cooperation—may dissolve. This phenomenon, what might be called virtual substitution, risks replacing the pursuit of genuine equality with the illusion of freedom. The wealthy may design pristine simulated paradises, while the marginalized remain trapped in deteriorating physical conditions, further widening the existential divide. Philosophically, it echoes C. Wright Mills’s warning about the concentration of power: those who control the means of virtual production could shape not only economies and politics but consciousness itself. The final danger, then, is not oppression by force but seduction by fantasy—a collective surrender of reality in exchange for comfort.

Part 3 Psychological and Cultural Preconditions for Egalitarian Society

Economic transformation cannot occur in isolation from psychological and cultural evolution. The persistence of class society is not only structural but also internalized—rooted in human habits of thought, emotion, and socialization that reproduce hierarchy even when material conditions could support equality. To abolish class oppression, humanity must cultivate the psychological maturity and cultural frameworks capable of sustaining egalitarian relationships.

The Psychology of Hierarchy and Status

Human beings possess deep-seated cognitive tendencies toward comparison and hierarchy. Evolutionary psychology suggests that early human groups relied on dominance hierarchies to coordinate behavior and distribute resources, conferring survival advantages on individuals who could navigate social rank effectively. These instincts, once adaptive in small-scale societies, now express themselves in many forms: materialism, competition, envy, and the pursuit of prestige.

Modern consumer culture exploits these drives through relentless advertising that equates status with self-worth. People internalize class hierarchies as reflections of personal merit or failure rather than social construction, producing shame among the poor and narcissism among the wealthy. Psychological research on social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) shows that self-evaluation depends heavily on perceived relative standing, making equality difficult to maintain unless new values and self-concepts emerge.

The Need for a New Moral Imagination

An egalitarian future requires cultivating what Erich Fromm called a “being mode” of existence rather than the “having mode.” In To Have or To Be?, Fromm warned that capitalist culture conditions people to measure their worth by possessions and power. Classless society, by contrast, demands that identity and meaning arise from creativity, empathy, and contribution rather than ownership.

This psychological shift parallels the moral transformation described by Grace Lee Boggs: individuals must change themselves in order to change the world. The internalization of cooperative values—mutual aid, humility, and respect for interdependence—forms the emotional foundation of economic equality. Without this moral reorientation, even the most egalitarian structures risk collapsing under the weight of human ego

Cultural Preconditions: Education, Media, and Myth

Culture is the software of society, shaping how people interpret justice, success, and human nature. Egalitarian systems require cultural narratives that celebrate interdependence rather than domination. This begins with education that fosters critical consciousness rather than conformity—what Paulo Freire called conscientização, the awakening of awareness that empowers people to perceive and transform oppressive systems.

Media also plays a decisive role. The mythologies of individualism and meritocracy must give way to stories that highlight cooperation, community, and shared destiny. Popular culture can normalize solidarity just as it once normalized competition. As bell hooks observed, “What we cannot imagine, we cannot create.” Thus, imagination itself becomes a political act—art, literature, and digital media must expand the moral horizon of what equality looks and feels like.

Emotional Intelligence and the Social Mind

Neuroscience and psychology increasingly reveal that empathy, altruism, and cooperation are not fragile exceptions but central features of the human brain. Mirror neurons, oxytocin release, and the neuropsychology of attachment all support prosocial behavior. However, competitive institutions suppress these capacities through chronic stress, fear, and scarcity thinking. Egalitarian societies must therefore nurture emotional intelligence as a civic virtue—teaching mindfulness, compassion, and conflict resolution as fundamental life skills.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that moral communities thrive when individuals feel connected to something larger than themselves. In a classless society, that collective meaning would no longer be tied to nationalism or religion but to the shared project of sustaining planetary life and human flourishing. Emotional maturity, not merely political ideology, becomes the true foundation of equality.

Toward an Integrated Transformation

Material equality without psychological transformation risks stagnation or regression; psychological awakening without structural change risks impotence. The abolition of class therefore demands integration—inner liberation matched with outer reorganization. As long as people internalize scarcity, superiority, and fear, they will rebuild hierarchies within any system. But if humanity learns to experience itself as one interdependent species, capable of meeting needs through cooperation rather than competition, the dream of a classless world may finally move from philosophy to lived reality.

.Comprehensive Conclusion 

Throughout this work, the exploration of classism reveals it not as a mere socioeconomic phenomenon but as a deeply rooted structure of human consciousness, sustained by history, psychology, and cultural conditioning. From the tribal origins of status to the modern complexities of capitalism, class divisions have reflected humanity’s struggle with fear, scarcity, and the illusion of superiority. The essay traced how early societies formed hierarchies for survival, how industrialization magnified inequality through property and production, and how digital globalization has both connected and further stratified humankind.

At its core, the argument establishes that true equality cannot emerge through redistribution alone. Political revolutions and technological progress have repeatedly altered the external forms of class but rarely addressed its internal sources—the need for validation, competition, and dominance that persist in the psyche. The cultural preconditions of classism therefore lie in values that prioritize possession over being, as Erich Fromm observed, and in the ways individuals internalize worth through consumption, comparison, and control.

The essay also posits that the next phase of evolution—social, ethical, and neurological—must involve a transformation of consciousness. This shift would replace the hierarchical worldview with one rooted in empathy, interdependence, and ecological harmony. Equality in the future demands not sameness but balance: a system where creative individuality thrives without exploitation, and where technology amplifies cooperation rather than power disparities. Education, too, becomes central to this transformation, functioning as a practice of freedom that cultivates awareness and mutual respect instead of reproducing class-based competition.

Ultimately, the work envisions a civilization where equality extends beyond law and economy into the very psychology of human existence. Classlessness becomes a state of mind before it becomes a social and legal bound condition.