Parity not equality

The essence of freedom is individuation.  This is the pinnacle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - the need to "be yo self."  Individuation is essentially the culmination of personal creative expression - it is the emergence of art within the fabric of biological necessity.  Without the opportunity to individuate, we are essentially not free.  Conformity and authority are impediments to freedom.

The opportunity to pursue our own personal genius is where our opportunity to excel lies.  Our 'excellence' is unique to each and every one of us, and any attempt at stifling that uniqueness ultimately stifles human excellence.  Authoritarian regimes ultimately stifle creativity and thus create a bottleneck in evolution, hastening their own demise.

In a communist society, the haves are forbidden from having more than the have-nots.  While beautiful in the sense of rectifying injustice, in practice this is recipe for mandatory conformity.  Uniqueness is condemned and excellence is punished, and the most talented geniuses always rebel against mandatory conformity and being 'average'.  Revolution is inevitable.

In a capitalist society, the haves are celebrated for having more than the have-nots.  Excellence is celebrated, and uniqueness rewarded.  In theory this is beautiful, but in practice the haves end up with everything, and the have-nots end up with their backs against the wall, and revolution is inevitable.

Where is the happy medium?

We need to discuss the term, 'parity'.
Parity means a level playing field.  Parity does not mean 'sameness' - parity means 'roughly equivalent.'  Or, 'equal opportunity.'  Duh.  You might have heard that one before.

Think about real gender equality for a moment.  It's kind of gross.  Gender sameness?  Ick.  I don't want gender sameness, I want gender parity.  I like the difference between genders, as long as both are equally appreciated.

Sports is an easy example.  In a world of absolute equality, every game would be required by law to end in a tie, all the teams would have to end every season with the same record, everyone would win a super bowl, and no one would be better than anyone else.  This is so stupid it's funny, but athletes would hate it, and they would not bother to participate.  But that's communism - no one is allowed to be better than anyone else, no one is allowed to 'win' and no one is allowed to 'lose' and consequently citizens don't bother to participate.  Equality taken to its logical extreme is absurd.

Parity maintains equality between teams, without requiring sameness.  Remember - parity means 'rough equivalence'.  The salary cap is how American sports teams maintain parity.  By establishing a salary cap, teams agree to maintain a rough equivalency, which makes games more exciting and - this is the crux - more competitive!  Parity maintains healthy competition.

Imagine what a sports league would look like without a salary cap.  The best teams would get the most airtime, make the most money, hire the best players, and win more games, get more airtime, make more money... There would be no parity, and as a consequence there would be no competition, and as a consequence, nobody would watch the games anymore, and the entire industry would collapse.  The industry would end up with a few too-big-to-fail entities that had no popular support.  Relatives, the team owners are billionaires - they didn't agree to a salary cap because they were humanitarians - they agreed to the salary cap because parity maintains high levels of competition, which is what the audience enjoys.  By destroying parity, the team owners would destroy the basis of support they depend on.  This is what happens in capitalism - without a salary cap, the best companies hire the best players, buy out the competition, establish anti-competitive cartels, bribe governments, and end up too-big-to fail with no popular support.  Has anyone noticed a growing disenchantment with capitalism?  Anyone?  Anyone?  
 
In a communist society, equality is mandatory, so nobody participates and the people stop up porting the system.  In a capitalist society, Equality is not enforced (yay!) but neither is parity (boo!), rough equivalence is lost, competition is replaced by monopolistic, to-big-to-fail behemoths, and the people stop supporting the system.

Capitalism is winner take all.  Loser gets to keep nothing, forced to rebel.
Communism is loser take all.  Winner  gets to keep nothing, forced to rebel.
Socialism is winner take most, loser left with plenty.  No one is forced to rebel.  Parity is maintained through consent of the governed, too-big-to-fail is too-big-to-tolerate,  and healthy competition is seamlessly, if paradoxically, interwoven into a field of cooperation...