Freedom vs. equality?

A review essay on a book by Barrington Moore, Jr., Authority and Inequality under Capitalism and Socialism: USA, USSR, and China (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987 [see listing in IRPS No. 51]). Moore's premise is deceptively simple: while the path to the top may vary between socialist & capitalist systems, with politics as the major avenue of advancement in the former & economics in the latter, the results are similar. This goes against the conventional wisdom that centrally planned economies trade freedom & economic prosperity for equality. There are two ways of refuting these claims, & Moore pursues both: (1) discussing the issue of inequality in a vigorous capitalist society, which he notes is true of all the industrial democracies; & (2) stressing the privileges that accrue to the party elite in the USSR, noting recent increases in the size of the professional stratum & arguing that there must be a massive amount of privilege to overcome the "official" wage differentials, which are less extreme than in the US; Moore also considers China, where the inequality is between the urban & rural populations. It would seem, then, that both socialist & capitalist polities divide their populations between the prosperous few & the unprosperous many, & the traditional notion that freedom is exchanged for equality under socialism has no basis in fact. Socialism has failed, Moore argues, because its leaders cannot resist the temptation to plunder. He does not think that either capitalism or socialism is protected against total venality, & points out that an informed electorate is rare. His solution is an end to political glamour & a return to leadership with modest, incremental goals. 2 Tables. F. S. J. Ledgister