Is a classless society possible

Answer 1

Given the speculative and highly controversial nature of the question, no definitive answer can truly be given, but here is to trying.

There is considerable evidence of rising class consciousness around the world, and a revival of political and social activism not seen since the 1960s. An absolutely classless society, as such, might not be attainable or even desirable, but rather a society which is at least free of dehumanizing exploitation, dire poverty, enormous disparities of wealth, malnutrition, toxic pollution, and institutionalized greed and corruption might be preferable and attainable even if some class structure still exists.

It is common knowledge that Merriam-Webster's "most looked up" words of 2012 were socialism and capitalism. This was almost certainly due to the highly divisive United States Election of 2012, where a Republican candidate who was viewed by critics as the very image of the exploitation and corruption of "vulture capitalism," coming from an extremely wealthy class that many see as detached from the realities of ordinary working- and middle-class Americans, and who raised considerably more money for his election campaign than his opponent, was decisively defeated by the current United States president, Barack Obama, whom opponents fallaciously label as a socialist.

For all of President Obama's political shortcomings, and the deep disappointment of his most progressive supporters who feel he submits far too much to his opponents in the name of "compromise," his election represented an unprecedented dramatic shift in public sentiment and views on minorities, as well as demonstrated the rapid demographic shift of the United States whose population is becoming less and less Caucasian and more and more a diverse collection of minority ethnicities, who do not feel well represented by a traditionally very Caucasian Republican party. This all has significant implications for class struggle in the United States and around the world.

Then of course there was what was arguably the United States' largest and most sustained radical, highly class conscious movement called Occupy Wall Street. Although it was very effectively crushed by brutal police tactics which evicted their "tent-city" occupations of symbolic political and economic landmarks and public spaces all over the country and around the world - the original and largest one being at Zuccotti Park near Wall Street itself in New York City - Occupy Wall Street was very successful in raising class consciousness in the general population, and altering political discourse in such a way that finally forced even corporate, mainstream news outlets to acknowledge extremely under-reported economic issues of enormous disparities of wealth (comparable to those in blatantly corrupt Third World economies), reckless financial speculation, extravagant CEO compensation, and controversial federal legislation, which used taxpayer money to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into monolithic banks and financial institutions in order to avoid what top economists said would otherwise quickly become a global economic meltdown.

There is considerable sentiment among both the Left and the Right - especially their more radical factions - that mass uprising, populist activism, and revolutionary tactics are now necessary in the United States and around the world to put a stop to the corruption of monolithic corporations and financial institutions who have an increasing stranglehold on the legislative bodies of nation states the world over, resulting in what many see as oppressive fiscal policies that benefit the wealthy, exploit laborers, and altogether ignore the impoverished.

The Far Left - such as the self-identifying anarchists, communists and socialists of Occupy Wall Street - understand corruption to be economically rooted, and naturally seek to abolish capitalism and replace it with something they regard as more egalitarian, stable and humane, such as social democracy or anarcho-syndicalism, while the Far Right understands corruption to be politically rooted and identifies the root of corruption being more so based in Washington, D.C. as opposed to Wall Street and finance, although many of them do also blame those institutions for corrupting capitalism, whereas the Left tends to view capitalism as inherently corrupt. The Left will certainly acknowledge political corruption in Washington and throughout state and local governments, but they are more likely to identify the root cause of political corruption to be economic in nature.

The Right mostly seeks to restore capitalism to what they regard as a more authentic form, focused on small-businesses and manufacturing instead of finance. They largely see the root of the corruption as coming from concentrated, tyrannical power of the Executive Branch and Congress whose policies squash competition and favor big business - thus rendering the most central aspects of capitalism meaningless. The Right also points to what they consider to be an activist Supreme Court which many of them argue is guilty of "legislating from the bench," rather than attempting to remain objective and impartial.

The most radical faction of the Far Right, the Tea Party movement, seeks to remove Leftist and Liberal congressmen from the Senate and House, and were very successful in doing so in 2008 in response to the popularity of Barack Obama. Despite their stated ideals of small-business, low taxes, and dramatically reduced role of the federal government, it was determined through investigative journalism that the Tea Party movement was largely bankrolled by some of the largest examples of the very form of corrupted capitalism they loathe - namely the billionaire brothers Charles Koch and David Koch - the owners of Koch Industries, which is one of the largest manufacturing, trade and finance companies in the United States.

These two radical factions of the Left and Right - Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party - represent two radically opposed approaches to how to remedy numerous political and social problems. The Tea Party does not seek to attain a classless society but rather to restore capitalism to its classic form which they believe allowed more upward mobility to reach the upper class through hard work and inventiveness. Occupy Wall Street arguably does seek to attain a classless society, or to raise up the impoverished unemployed class and the underpaid, exploited working class to something more closely resembling the middle class.

Where the two sides sometimes intersect is in the relatively new breed of increasingly popular Libertarian thought, sometimes referred to as anarcho-capitalism, the most famous Libertarian being former Republican party member and third party presidential candidate Ron Paul. Paul's views are characterized by a unique blend of fiscal conservatism and socially progressive policies. Ron Paul was easily the most radical of any of the Republican presidential candidates, and many of his supporters strongly criticized the media and election committees for barring Ron Paul from debate in the Republican primaries, despite his enormous popularity especially among youth - a key demographic Republicans have lost in droves to Democrats, whose progressive social positions they prefer very much to what many of them view as out-of-touch social conservatism.

The outcomes of the 2012 Election in the United States, at the federal and local level, were very suggestive of a distaste for what many saw as dangerous, stubbornly obstructionist tactics of the newly elected Tea Party congressmen, who swept into the House of Representatives in particular and came to dominate the Republican agenda, much to the dismay of many more moderate Republicans. Especially telling was the defeat of Tea Party Senator Scott Brown by Harvard professor, longtime consumer advocate, and boldly progressive Democrat Elizabeth Warren, in the most closely watched race after the presidential race. Many of Warren's supporters saw her as the rightful heir to the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant by the very progressive Democrat Ted Kennedy upon his death. Elizabeth Warren was well known recently for establishing the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is tasked with overseeing and regulating financial institutions in order to prevent the kinds of consumer abuses and highly-complex credit default swaps which were largely the cause of the 2008 financial crisis.

To briefly look at Europe, massive protests erupted in many countries of the European Union, most notably in Spain and Greece, where more deeply rooted traditions of insurrectionary anarchism sparked much more violent resistance - mainly resistance against crushing austerity measures which have dramatically reduced many workers' salaries, gutted their pensions, and made deep cuts to social spending in countries whose economies are more geared toward reliance on such social spending. Many economists argue that these austerity measures are like economic suicide, and actually make the problems they are purportedly trying to remedy far worse. While the vast majority of participants in these protests remained peaceful, there were considerable numbers of militant anarchists who branched off from the main marches and rallies, caused significant property damage and set many buildings ablaze.

While the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States was much more peaceful than some of the European protests, it was not entirely without its own insurrectionary off-shoots, which were especially visible with the militant and controversial Black Bloc faction. Although they used some similar tactics as their anarchist brothers and sisters in Greece, they did not represent as large a percentage of the protest movement as their European counterparts. It should be mentioned that the peaceful Occupy Wall Street movement and the more militant Black Bloc insurrectionists have no direct affiliation with one another, and both take a position of distancing themselves from each other out of mutual respect, though they often criticize each other's tactics as either not going far enough, or going to far.

This all may seem quite tangential, but it is all crucial for understanding this very complex question to which there is no short or easy answer. These are the numerous and chaotic forces at play in relation to the question of attaining a classless, or at least more just and fair, society and economy.

Answer 2

The classless society is opposed to the class society. This latter is based on the following principle: The results of majority's work go to the minority. The classless society will be founded on the opposite rule: The results of any work go to those who do the work. For that it is important to control the production and distribution, but people cannot have this control because of "right of property". The people cannot touch the wealth and the production's means because their ownership is protected by the law and the law is applied by the State. Then the first thing to do is to get ride of the State as the guard of class relationship. Once the ruling State is overthrown the people should take the control of every collective issues in their hands and manage all the institutions and companies by themselves. This would be the self-management system, by the people for the people. In such a society because the outcomes of the activities come back to those who do it there would no more possible to accumulate the wealth and then to constitute any privileged statute named class.

Answer 3

No. Humanity has the habit of separating itself into classes, as a simple result of the fact that some people are better than others.