The “Uthopia” of Equality

This paper offers a careful analysis of the growing social inequality at the light of the concepts freedom and equality, considering the reciprocal implication between the exigencies of freedom and equality. In the growing fail of the institutions which make the social link and solidarity function in the crisis of the providential State and of work, the relation between economy and society enter in crisis, together with the crisis of the subject – individual and collective identities. Because of the growing weakness of the traditional political forces, more and more distant from society, the risk of an increased social acceptance of populism and of openly authoritarian approaches, materializes. Nevertheless, between a paralyzing resignation and anti-democratic solutions, nowadays new spaces open, for the redefinition of “radical reformism” from below, toward a redefinition of the concept of democracy, in the attempt of establishing the foundation of freedom and equality. This attempt rejects not only “authority”, but also a formalistic concept of democracy, toward a definition of “social virtue” and “good living” as the contents of democracy.