Egalitarian Values & Principles Summarized
This is a summary of the more detailed "What Is Egalitarianism?"
by John Spritzler
October 19, 2025
Egalitarianism is the idea that society should be based on the Golden Rule and hence shaped by egalitarian values, which are:
1) Equality in the sense of "no rich and no poor," not the "equal opportunity" sense that means an equal opportunity to get richer than others; democracy is equality in the political realm;
2) Mutual Aid, also known as solidarity, meaning helping each other and not taking advantage of others' weakness or difficulty for selfish gain;
3) Fairness as discussed here;
4) Justice as discussed here;
5) Freedom as discussed here;
6) Truth as discussed here.
Egalitarians are people who, whether they've ever heard the word "egalitarian" or not, share these values implicitly if not explicitly, in other words egalitarians are the vast majority of people.
Egalitarian principles of government, the economy and defense are ways of implementing these values. These principles are:
Government:
Social order--including, in particular, democratic government--is based on mutual agreements only among egalitarians (excluding anti-egalitarians), not on the anti-democratic principle that egalitarians must obey laws that they have no equal say in writing and that are written by other people (such as so-called "representatives").
One way of implementing this principle is by having sovereign (no higher governmental authority) local assemblies of only egalitarians at which all adult egalitarians who live or work in the local community have a right to participate as equals in democratically a) making the laws that everybody in the local community must obey and b) delegating various authorities to individuals or committees. Voluntary federation of such assemblies is used to reach mutual agreements for order on a larger than local scale.
Economy:
People who work reasonably according to ability either a) voluntarily share (not buy and sell) freely the fruits of the economy among themselves according to need and reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need, where what is reasonable is determined by democratic government and where the details of this are reached by mutual agreements; or b) they use barter to exchange goods and services. Since there is no buying and selling, money is not necessary and ideally is not used at all because it potentially enables some to gain unjust power over others.
Nobody is allowed to hire wage workers or use slave labor. At all places of work the workers all have equal status economically and with respect to having a say in democratically making the decisions affecting both the manner and the purpose of their work.
Defense of egalitarian values:
Egalitarians have the right to form voluntary militias to defend egalitarian values when necessary, as discussed here.