Inequality lost its historical justification once material abundance made poverty abolishable

Evidence

Agreeing with Marx and Freud, Horkheimer also held that inequality, which had in the past been justified by its effectiveness as an instrument of progress, had no legitimacy in the conditions of the present day. It might appear that in earlier times achievements which accelerated material culture were only possible on the basis of a minority having significant privileges, while the majority had to make sacrifices. But at the present time it seemed to be the case that privileges awarded for not particularly brilliant achievements were obstructing the abolition of poverty, which was objectively possible. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 193

Categorization

• XREF: Anticipates John Rawls’s difference principle and debates about when inequality loses legitimacy. — connects to: Modern inequality’s pain comes from knowing dignity that feudalism-era people lacked — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 137
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 193

Broader Connections

• Modern inequality’s pain comes from knowing dignity that feudalism-era people lacked #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 137