India will confront me with inequality, stark and extreme economic inequality.  And that brings me back to Mencius, who says: "…inequality is in the very nature of things." (95).  When he says that he is specifically referring to prices in the market: there will always be goods of varying quality that will fetch higher or lower prices in a free market.  But elsewhere in the same chapter (either 5 or 3A, depending on the translation) he offers a defense of the distinction between manual and mental labor, another form of inequality.  I reproduce an excerpt here for your consideration.

     A bit of background: in this passage Mencius is pressing back against a man, Ch’en Hsiang, who want to go and join a self-sufficient commune, under the leadership of Master Hsu, where rulers till the soil just like an average peasant, where there is no distinction between manual and mental labor.  Mencius questions him:

"Does Master Hsu eat only the grain he himself has grown?" asked Mencius?

"Yes,"  replied Ch’en Hsiang.

"And does Master Hsu wear only cloth he himself has woven?"

"No, but he wears only sackcloth."

"Does Master Hsu wear a hat?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"Raw Silk."

"Did he weave it himself?"

"No, he traded grain for it."

"How is it Master Hsu doesn’t weave his own hat?"

"It would interfere with his farm work."

"Does Master Hsu use metal and stoneware for cooking?  And for plowing, does he use iron?"

"He does."

"And does he make all these things himself?"

"No, he trades grain for them."

"To trade grain for tools and implements doesn’t hurt potters and smithies," said Mencius.  "They trade their tools and implements for grain, and does that hurt farmers?  Why doesn’t Master Hsu become a potter and smithy as well, so he himself can make everything his home needs?  The markets of those who practice the hundred crafts are pure bedlam: why does he join in the confusion of barter and trade?  How can he bear it?"

"You can’t practice a craft and be a farmer, too."

"The how could someone govern all beneath Heaven and also be a farmer?  There are the endeavors of great men, and the endeavors of small men.  And whatever they need, the hundred crafts provide.  If we had to make things before we could use them, we’d spend our lives running back and forth on the roads.

"And so it is said:

Some use their minds to work, and some use their muscles.  Those who use their minds govern, and those who use their muscles are governed.  Those who are governed provide for those who govern, and those who govern are provided for by those who are governed."