The type of inequality criticized by Marx and Rousseau is social inequality. Social inequality differs from inequality in general as being in some way artificial. It only exists in power relationships in which an individual or group is able to make others act in ways they would not otherwise. Rousseau distinguishes between natural inequality which “is established by nature and consists in difference of age, health, bodily strength, and qualities of mind or soul”, and what he calls “moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention and is established...by the consent of man”. Marx is concerned with power in terms of ownership beyond what one creates with their own labor. Inequality is the result of the products of one’s labor not being owned by one’s self but by another, and is inherently social. This relationship results in the laborer becoming “all the poorer the more wealth he produces... an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates” because the laborer works for someone else.
The story of The Time Machine is of an English scientist in the year 1899 who by realizing time is a dimension, and not something physical, discovers one can move through it in several directions like one can move around in the second dimension. He gives a lecture on the possibility of time travel in which the narrator was present. The scientist sets up a dinner party for guests who attended his previous lecture on time as the fourth dimension, but arrives late with his clothes in tatters. He claims that since their last meeting he actually used a working time machine and went to the future, to around the year 800,000 in what used to be London. He tells the story of a future society where mankind is divided into two species, the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are evolved from the upper classes of Britain and are a fair skinned race of small, childlike adults with very little intelligence who spend all day in leisure. Below them are their opposites, the Morlocks who live underground and are descendants of the British working class. They are ape-like, nocturnal creatures who toil with industrial machinery underground. They are the ones who work to make the Eloi´s clothing and food, and in return hunt and eat the Eloi. The future society is relatively peaceful, as the Eloi and Morlocks have developed a symbiotic relationship. Class conflict has been solved by a total separation of the working class and the wealthy. The rest of the book involves the time traveler losing his ship to the Morlocks and having to go into their underground world. Before going back in time he tries to being one of the Eloi, Weena, who he falls in love with him, but ultimately loses her to the Morlocks. As he escapes the Morlocks he accidentally travels further in the future, and becomes curious with the fate of the Earth. He reaches the end of planet Earth when all life has disappeared and the Sun no longers heats the Earth. He makes it back to the year 1900, but again goes to the future to alter Weena’s fate. Three years have passed without him returning.
The theme of The Time Machine is that inequality is the driver of social advancement. The Eloi and the Morlocks are the inevitable result of increasing inequality when human beings become so adapted to their circumstances that they become separate species. This starts with “the gradual widening of the present merely temporary social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer”. Inequality changes human beings to the point where they no longer have a common interest and feel comfortable in servitude or control. The fulfillment of society, which is the stability and security so sought after, is unsustainable and ultimately defeats itself. The balance between the rich and poor was achieved in The Time Machine only by destroying their common humanity. The abundant life of the Eloi was only possible by impoverishing the Morlocks to the state of transforming them into animals. The Morlocks are the initial victims of this arrangement, but do not revolt because they have become adapted to their situation and lack the essential feature of humanity, which is intellect. The Morlocks have "continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. "the rebellious would die: and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy as the Upper-world people were to theirs”. The Eloi are themselves victims who despite living in leisure have lost their physical and mental strength. The advancement society has provided has done away with class conflict by first eliminating want, and along the way creating such a gulf between classes that equality becomes unnecessary for creatures which no longer have the mental capacity to want a more just society. "The advancement of the technology which increases the output of their labor has abolished necessity. “Where is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Wells suggests that conflict is what gives meaning to life by developing our capacity for individual survival, as “only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers”. This capacity is what society is designed to extinguish. Stability, which is social progress, comes at the price of what makes humans equal, which is their intellect.
Rousseau agrees with Wells that social inequality is inevitable due to the destruction of common human interests. Rousseau identified the development of ego-centrism as analogous to society. Ego-centrism is caused by reason which is “what turns man in upon himself” and is what “isolates him and moves him to say...perish if you will, I am safe and sound”. Reason emerges from social life, due to a competition for scarce resources. As the population grows, what is enough for an individual becomes scarce and requires invention from the use of knowledge to artificially increase resources. Social inequality arises from necessity, as “natural inequality manifests itself together with inequality occasioned by the socialization process”. These needs would not exist if nature’s product was not consumed so quickly. Once this process of reason develops from need, it creates an imbalance of wealth to those who have the yield of the new technology. “Laboring equally, the one earned a great deal while the other barely had enough to live” is what technology, the product of reason and society, brings. This new scarcity brings “inequality in our lifestyle: excessive idleness among some, excessive labor among other” that creates inequality of social status. We become “subject, by virtue of a multitude of fresh needs, to all nature and particularly to his fellowmen”. We seek to look out for ourselves, but due to scarcity our selfishness brings us together, in bondage. Society makes us more selfish while at the same time making us more dependent. It is no contradiction, because civilization’s growth increases differences between individuals so that they no longer feel compassion towards one another, but competition. The intelligence that created technology, and consequently deprivation, rids the scarcity that gave rise to reason and becomes a defender of inequality.
Karl Marx offers a contrary view of the nature of inequality to Wells and Rousseau, claiming that inequality is not inevitable and is an impediment to progress. Inequality is part of a historical process leading towards greater human equality. Marx’s idea is that as society becomes more unequal, it unites the interests of the powerless until they become a majority with common goals and topple the class system. This unison is possible only by the growth of inequality. The high level of inequality under capitalism simplified property relations by ending feudal and communal forms of property like the family and religion and lays bare the true exploitative nature of the elite. Capitalism “has simplified class antagonisms”. The dominance of private property destroys and leaves “no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest”. The relationship between rich and poor is made closer by eliminating countervailing sources of authority against private private property so that “national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible”. Since “society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat” there should be increasing common interest among the working class. The enlargement and common interest of the laborers over time means that a future society can be created where there is no inequality at all. Their superior numbers and unison will give them a productive force that ends property. From the historical process, “the proletariat is its special and essential product” who are a class which does not rest on exploitation but is its result. Marx believes that the economic growth of propertied society is in the end beneficial in the long run by producing “its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable”.
I agree with Rousseau’s argument that social inequality is inevitable. The division of labor which wealth provides allows for more leisure for some and work for others. Growth is not distributed evenly. The Time Machine puts this reality into the starkest terms. The Eloi are able to live in leisure because the Morlocks do all their work for them. It would seem that the Morlocks are self sufficient and could throw off the Eloi's control, but they do not since they depend on the Eloi as a source of food. The poor because they do not own their labor are dependent on the rich. They have their own self-interest to look out for. As Rousseau said the poor will not achieve class consciousness because their dependency has engendered ego-centrism. They do not have an existence beyond their social status and do not conceive of a world without individual differences, largely because they have nothing to gain from such a situation. Society's growth is designed to cut us off from each other and give us something to lose in case of revolt. Wells' dystopia shows how inequality can continue without conflict. We become satisfied with our bondage because contrary to Marx we have nothing to gain and a world to lose.
Marx’s error is not taking into account the effect our social conditioning has on reconciling us with our unequal footing. Diverging ways of life, as described in The Time Machine, adapt each class to their situation and make them content in their position. “This widening gulf-which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the increased facilities and temptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich-will make that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along lines of social stratification, less and less frequent”. The cultural behavior of the wealthy enforces their lifestyle through interbreeding and increasing separation from the working classes. The isolated lives of the working class will become so hard for them to get out of due to less interaction with their superiors that “the rebellious would die”. The gap between class increases even as both classes interests become uniform, thus hiding their antagonism from sight. Today we see this from the geographic segregation of the wealthy from the inner cities and their tendency to attend private schools and intermarry with each other. In Marx’s time, the laborer came in close contact with the capitalist at the factory. But globalism has made it so the workers never see their bosses who reside in a foreign land with completely different cultural aesthetics. The elite cease to become a tangible thing to rally against, and the worker is immersed among only their own kind.
The Time Machine shows how inequality changes human beings to the point where they no longer have a common interest and feel comfortable in servitude to each other. Both rich and poor need each other to live, but are so blinded by their narrow interests created by society’s growth that they will act to make others worse off to better themselves. The Eloi and the Morlocks are the paradoxical result of the perfect society. The perfect society results in a dystopia because the foundations of society set in motion greater inequity in wealth which reinforces class distinction and removes our common humanity. Rousseau correctly identified the rise of ego-centrism as the logical conclusion of social life, and as the source of conformity. Marx thought that property which create such antagonism that it would not last. But the future of the Eloi and Morlocks is one that portrays the counterrevolutionary effect of inequality, which eventually does away with the gains of society. The essence of humanity, the intellect, does not survive. Social progress is incompatible with equality because it creates complacency and lowers humans to the level of instinct like the savage Morlocks and the simpleton Eloi.
Note: This was a final paper I wrote for a political philosophy class.
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